SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 




MORRIS HIIXQUIT. 



SOCIALISM 
SUMMED UP 



BY 

MORRIS HILLQUIT 

AUTHOR OF 
''SOCIALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE" AND 
''HISTORY OF SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES. - " 




NEW YORK 

THE H. K. FLY COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



*+ 






** 



Copyright, 1912 by 
THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY 



Copyright, 1913 by 
THE H. K. FLY COMPANY 



©CI.A343355 



7^ 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

Introduction 7 

I. The Causes that Make for Socialism .... 9 

II. The Socialist Aim 24 

III. The Trend of Social Development 34 

IV. The Methods of Socialism 44 

V. The Political Program 59 

VI. The Accomplishments of the Movement. . 76 

VII. Socialist Movement in the United States. . 95 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Morris Hillquit Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Society, under Capitalism, crushed between In- 
dustrial Combination and Competition. ... 20 

Socialists believe in the abolition of the Senate 

and the veto power of the President 64 

Socialists would curb the Court's power of in- 
junction 65 

Socialists would begin their reforms with the 

child, the bearer of the nation's future. ... 83 

Socialism is the legitimate child of Capitalism 
and the latter cannot help begetting the 
former 99 



INTRODUCTION. 

CHARLES THE FIFTH once said that the 
sun never set on his empire. We Socialists 
may apply these words to our movement, and 
say that the sun never sets on the countries in which 
the red banner floats." 

With these words the eloquent Belgian deputy, 
Emile Vandervelde, opened the International Socialist 
Congress, held in Stuttgart in 1907. It was not an 
empty boast. The Socialist movement is as wide as 
the world. In Europe its power is felt alike in the 
highly civilized central and northern countries, in auto- 
cratic Russia, in apathetic Spain and in the backward 
Balkan principalities and kingdoms. The "red spec- 
ter" has invaded the Celestial empire, Persia and 
Japan; Transvaal and the Australian colonies; the 
South American republics and the Dominion of Can- 
ada. The United States is fast becoming a strong- 
hold of the new doctrine. 

The gospel of Socialism is preached in more than 
sixty tongues. Its creed is accepted by thirty million 
persons. 

A movement of such magnitude and universality 



INTRODUCTION 

could not spring up without a cause, or continue with- 
out a mission. To scoff at it is futile. To ignore it is 
folly. It must be faced. It should be understood. 

And Socialism can be understood very readily. De- 
spite all assertions to the contrary, the mainsprings of 
the movement are quite obvious, its philosophy is ex- 
ceedingly simple and its program is very definite. 



Socialism Summed Up 

CHAPTER I. 

THE CAUSES THAT MAKE FOR SOCIALISM. 

SOCIALISM is distinctly a modern movement. 
Contrary to prevailing notions, it has no con- 
nection, historical or intellectual, with the. 
Utopias of Plato or Moore, or with the practices of 
the communistic sects of former ages. 

The Socialist movement was called into life by eco- 
nomic conditions which have sprung up within very 
recent periods. Its program is an attempted solution 
of the problems inherent in these conditions. 

The cardinal demand of Socialism is the abolition 
of private ownership in the principal sources and in- 
struments of wealth production, and there was prac- 
tically no physical basis and no rational justification 
for such a demand before about the beginning of the 
nineteenth century. 

As an illustration, let us take the economic condi- 
tion of the United States in the early days of the 
republic. The main industry of the country was agri- 
culture, and land was plentiful and accessible to all. 
The mechanical arts and crafts were practiced on a 

9 



io SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

small scale, and on the basis of individual effort and 
use. Such tools as there were, were in the main hand- 
tools, simple and inexpensive. The old-time mechanic 
could readily acquire them and ply his trade in his 
home or small workshop. It was not capital, but skill 
and knowledge that the worker required. As a rule, 
the apprentice or helper was not in a position of per- 
manent dependence upon his employer. He was a 
pupil learning the trade from the "master," and as 
soon as he was equipped for the task, he could set up 
in business as an independent producer. His tool was 
his own, his skill was his own, and the finished product 
was his own in the equitable as well as in the legal 
sense of the term. He relied on his individual efforts 
for his living. He had the means for earning his liv- 
ing always ready at hand. It is obvious that under 
such conditions no advantage could be gained from 
socializing the tool or from national or collective oper- 
ation of the industries. 

But within the last generations a silent revolution 
has taken place in our methods of producing and dis- 
tributing wealth. The simple tool of the old-time 
mechanic has gradually evolved into the modern ma- 
chine of wonderful complexness and gigantic dimen- 
sions, propelled by steam or electricity, and often- 
times doing the work of hundreds of human hands. 
The modest workshop of our grandfathers has grown 
into the immense modern factory under whose roof 
hundreds, sometimes thousands of workers are congre- 
gated for joint labor. Mass production, division of 



CAUSES THAT MAKE FOR SOCIALISM n 

labor and specialization of functions have largely 
superseded individual effort, general efficiency and ac- 
quired skill in industry. The impersonal "market" 
has replaced the specific "customer." Production has 
become social in character, methods and object. 

This economic evolution has brought about a most 
thoroughgoing change in the social conditions and re- 
lations of the people. 

For the first time in history free producers found 
themselves divorced from the tools of their labor. 
The modern worker cannot revert to the simple tool 
of his forefathers. He must have access to the up- 
to-date plants, machinery and equipment. His entire 
social usefulness depends on that machinery. Without 
it he is an industrial cripple. But the individual 
worker cannot own the modern machine, and the 
workers collectively do not own it. The machines, 
factories and plants, the land, mines and railroads — 
in brief, all the modern sources and instruments of 
wealth production are owned and controlled by a class 
of persons other than the workers. 

The most gruesome picture of physical and mental 
torture ever evolved by the human brain is probably 
the familiar fable of Tantalus. The victim of divine 
wrath stands in water up to his chin with the choicest 
fruit hanging over his head. He is maddened with 
thirst and hunger. He eagerly bends his parched lips 
to the cool and sweet water around him and stretches 
his trembling hand for the luscious fruit temptingly 
dangling before his eyes. But the water always re- 



12 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

cedes, the fruit always retreats, and Tantalus is left 
to starve amid plenty. 

The morbid imagination of Greek antiquity has be- 
come a social and economic fact in modern America. 
Our country abounds with natural wealth. Millions 
of workers yearn for the necessaries of life. The 
material for the production of these necessaries is 
right around them. They are eager to make their 
food and clothing with their own toil. They have the 
requisite skill and ability. But between them and their 
living stands the modern tool, the key to all wealth, 
and behind the tool stands the capitalist owner, with 
power to withhold its use from the people. In normal 
times about two million workers in this country are 
denied the right to work, and in times of acute indus- 
trial depression the number of "unemployed" mounts 
to five millions or more. Yet all that time the people 
need food and commodities, and are ready to produce 
them, and all that time the land abounds with raw 
material waiting for the magic touch of labor to be 
turned into consumable products. Our economic sys- 
tem condemns the worker to suffering and privation 
amid wealth and affluence. 

With the loss of their tools the workers have lost 
their economic independence. They work and they 
live or they idle and starve according to the conven- 
ience of the powerful tool-owners. The reward of 
their industry is at best a mere subsistence wage. The 
fruits of their labor go largely to the possessor of the 
productive capital as an involuntary tax or license fee. 



CAUSES THAT MAKE FOR SOCIALISM 13 

Thus modern society is split into two principal eco- 
nomic classes : the users of the machinery of produc- 
tion, who do not own it, and the owners, who do not 
use it; the employers and the employees, the capital- 
ists and the workers, those who derive their income 
from "profits" and those who depend for their living 
on "wages." The classes are not fixed by law, but 
they are determined just as effectively by economic 
position, and as the modern industrial system is un- 
folding, they tend to become permanent and even 
hereditary. A lucky workingman or clerk may still 
occasionally be lifted into the coveted realms of 
wealth and power, but the probabilities of such a rise 
are not much greater than the proverbial chances of 
each soldier in the Napoleonic army to be advanced 
to the rank of field marshal. The vast mass of wage- 
earners are doomed to factory work for life, and their 
children are predestined factory hands. And similarly 
capitalism is rapidly becoming a hereditary status. 
The "self-made man," the pioneer of a new industry, 
is fast passing away. Modern wealth is largely in the 
hands of second or third generations. The gay heir 
who squanders his fortune and is reduced to the origi- 
nal poverty of his grandsires, becomes rarer, as the 
fortunes of the individual capitalists grow in bulk, 
and corporate management supersedes individual in- 
itiative. 

It is not contended that the entire population is 
definitely divided into the two classes mentioned. 
There are, of course, the more or less indefinite and 



14 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

undefinable economic groups, generally designated as 
the "middle classes," with all shades of special inter- 
ests, but the main factors in modern industrial life are 
clearly represented by the two most pronounced types 
or classes — the capitalists and the wage-earners, the 
latter comprising all grades of hired manual and men- 
tal workers. 

And there is war between and among the classes 
War, sometimes overt and violent, sometimes con 
cealed and even unconscious, but war nevertheless 
The war is all the more intense and irrepressible be 
cause it springs not from personal hostility or acci 
dental misunderstandings, but from ever-present or- 
ganic economic antagonism. 

There is war between employer and employee. 

The employer is in business for profits. Industrial 
profits come from the work of the hired hand. The 
smaller the wages, the larger the profits. The em- 
ployee works for wages. Wages represent the pro- 
duct of his labor after deduction of the employer's 
profit. The smaller the profit, the larger the wages. 
The employer must strive to maintain or increase his 
profits under penalty of industrial extermination. His 
personal views and feelings cannot alter the situation. 
The employee must strive to maintain or increase his 
wages under pain of physical destruction. His per- 
sonal inclinations do not count. Sometimes this an- 
tagonism of interests expresses itself in petty bargain- 
ing and commonplace haggling, and at other times 
it assumes the form of violent conflicts: strikes, 



CAUSES THAT MAKE FOR SOCIALISM 15 

boycotts and occasional dynamite explosions, and on 
the other hand lockouts, black lists, injunctions and 
jails. 

There is war between employer and employee. 

Each capitalist controls a share of an industry. The 
greater the share, the larger is ordinarily his profit. 
His natural desire is to increase his share. He can do 
that only at the expense of his neighbor. Hence the 
mad industrial competition, the merciless rivalry for 
the "market," the mutual underbidding and under- 
selling, the adulteration and falsification of commodi- 
ties, the senseless speculative enterprises, and finally, 
wholesale failure and ruin. 

There is war between worker and worker. 

Modern machinery, although inherently of untold 
blessing to mankind, operates as a curse upon the 
toiler under the prevailing system of individual owner- 
ship. It does not lighten the burdens of the worker. 
It does not reduce his hours of labor — it displaces him 
from his employment. The marvelous productivity 
of the machine creates the dread legions of jobless 
workers, the fierce competition for a chance to work 
and the consequent lowering of wages below the living 
standard. 

The automatic, almost self-operating machine 
makes child and woman labor possible and profitable, 
and the children and wives of the workers are drafted 
into the field of industry in competition with their 
fathers and husbands. The more women and children 
are at work in the factories, the rarer become the 



ig SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

opportunities for men to find work and the lower 
become their wages. Child and woman labor mean 
lower wages for man. Low wages for men mean 
more child and woman labor, and so the workers move 
forever in a vicious circle of misery and privation. 

There is war between producer and user. 

Business is conducted for profits. The larger the 
prices of the commodity or the higher the rate of ser- 
vice, the greater is ordinarily the profit of the capi- 
talist. Hence the everlasting quarrels between the 
seller and buyer, the landlord and tenant, the carrier 
and passenger: the aggressive and inexorable "pro- 
ducer" and the pitiable "ultimate consumer." 

The individualistic and competitive system of in- 
dustry is a system of general social warfare, an ugly, 
brutal fight of all against all. It is a mad, embittered 
race for wealth or bread without plan or system, with- 
out pity or mercy. It has produced the abnormal type 
of the multi-millionaire with a hoard of material 
wealth enough to last thousands of families for count- 
less generations to come, and the children of the slums 
succumbing for lack of the barest necessaries of life. 
It operates through periods of feverish activity dur- 
ing which men, women and even children of tender age 
are worked to exhaustion, and periods of inactivity 
and depression during which millions of willing work- 
ers are forced into idleness and starvation. 

The system of competition has not been without 
merit. It has organized industry, stimulated inven- 
tion and increased human productivity a hundredfold. 



CAUSES THAT MAKE FOR SOCIALISM 17 

It has created vast wealth and evolved higher stand- 
ards of life. It has broken down the barriers between 
countries and united all modern nations into one 
world-wide family of almost identical culture and civ- 
ilization. It has played a most important and useful 
part in the history of human growth. 

But sharing the fate of all other industrial systems, 
competition finally reaches a stage when its mission is 
accomplished, and its usefulness is outlived. Com- 
petition, which in its youth and vigor is "the life of 
trade," becomes in old age a plague and a nuisance. 
In the long run it demoralizes the industrial life of the 
nation and exhausts and ruins the competitors them- 
selves. At that point competition begins to yield, 
gradually but surely, to a new industrial form — com- 
bination. Then arises the modern business corpora- 
tions, followed by trade agreements and pools, and 
finally by the trusts and monopolies. 

The trusts are not the invention of ingenious 
financial manipulators, nor are they accidental and 
preventable evils. They are the inevitable culmina- 
tion of the process of capitalist development, the ma- 
ture fruit of the system of industrial individualism. 
They represent a superior and more efficient method 
of industrial management than competition, just as 
the modern machine is a superior and more efficient 
medium of industrial operation than the antiquated 
hand-tool. 

The trusts are a powerful factor in the industrial 
life of the nation, and they modify the social condi- 



1 8 SOCIALISM S UMMED UP 

tions of the country both for the better and the worse. 
As large consolidations of capital operating in unison 
over the area of an entire industry or a considerable 
part of it, they tend to eliminate much of the chaos 
and anarchy of the competitive system. They have 
the power to regulate the supply of commodities in 
accord with the demand, to curb waste and overpro- 
duction and to diminish the evil of periodical indus- 
trial depression and financial crises. 

But the beneficial features of the trusts are more 
than balanced by the new evils which they breed. The 
trusts, like all other modern industrial institutions, are 
primarily conducted for the profits of their individ- 
ual owners and promoters. They are therefore 
afflicted with all the vices of private capitalist owner- 
ship and management, and their tremendous powers 
intensify the evils. The trusts have developed the 
art of overcapitalization to a most audacious and 
alarming extent. Billions of dollars of their watered 
"securities" are afloat in this country, and the workers 
pay an annual tribute of hundreds of millions to the 
holders of this paper in the shape of interest and divi- 
dends. It is practically a blanket mortgage which 
the trusts thus hold on the people of the United States 
and upon the products of the toil of generations of 
Americans yet unborn. 

The trusts are the most important and sometimes 
the sole employers of labor in their industries. Hence 
they have practically absolute power to dictate the 
terms of employment of their workers. Most trusti- 



CAUSES THAT MAKE FOR SOCIALISM, 19 

fied industries are characterized by long hours, 
miserable wages and general ill-treatment of the em- 
ployees. 

The trusts as complete or practical monopolies also 
have the power to arbitrarily fix the prices of com- 
modities. In most trustified industries the prices of 
goods or charges for services have increased enor- 
mously notwithstanding the great economies in pro- 
duction. The trusts are the principal cause of the 
vexatious new problem familiarly and intimately 
known as "the high cost of living." 

But more baneful even than the economic evils of 
the trusts are their corrupting effects on the public 
and political life of the country — their notorious in- 
fluence on the dominant political parties, the govern- 
ment, legislatures and judiciary, and their control of 
the public press. The trusts are a most serious men- 
ace to democracy. 

Thus capitalist management of the industries, both 
competitive and trustified, has produced most of the 
social maladies of our day and generation. 

It has divided the people into classes with antag- 
onistic economic interests and has bred class struggles 
and class hatred. 

It has placed inordinate wealth and power in the 
hands of the few, and has reduced the many to a state 
of drudgery and poverty. 

It has cast out of the active industrial life of the 
nation millions of willing and able workers and has 
driven them into shiftlessness, vice and crime. 



20 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

It has brought uncertainty and misery to all classes 
of the people, and happiness to none. 

The wage-worker is not alone the only one to suffer 
from the consequences of capitalistic mismanagement. 

For the small merchant or manufacturer, placed 
between the nether millstone of competition with his 
own kind and the upper millstone of powerful indus- 
trial combinations, business is an embittered and piti- 
ful struggle. He fights hard to maintain his indus- 
trial independence, but it is a losing fight against the 
superior force of irresistible and immutable economic 
development. His fate is sealed. It is only a ques- 
tion of time when he will find his abiding place in the 
service of the trust or in the ranks of propertyless 
wage labor. 

The precarious status of the small business man 
drives his sons and daughters in ever greater numbers 
into the liberal professions. The latter become con- 
gested in the extreme, unregulated, uncertain and un- 
remunerative. The professional classes have their 
armies of unemployed or partly unemployed substan- 
tially to the same extent as the wage-workers. The 
"intellectual proletarian" is not much better situated 
than the proletarian of the manual variety. 

The farmer is dominated, controlled and exploited 
by the power of capitalism just as much as the other 
producing classes. By means of mortgages, railroad 
freight rates, elevator and storage charges and prices 
of monopolistically produced farm implements and 
machinery, the capitalists manage to appropriate the 




The small manufacturer, 
under Capitalism, crushed 
between Industrial Com- 
bination and Competition. 



CAUSES THAT MAKE FOR SOCIALISM 21 

lion's share of his labor as effectively, though not 
quite as directly, as that of the hired factory hand. 

And even the capitalist, the sole beneficiary of the 
modern industrial system, does not always lead a life 
of joy, leisure and mental repose. The active capi- 
talist is driven by the system more than he is driving 
it. He is the slave as well as the master of his wealth. 

No individual or class of individuals can be held 
responsible for this general social unhappiness. The 
average capitalist is inherently as good as the average 
worker. The average worker is by nature no better 
than the average capitalist. The ills of our society 
are the direct and inevitable results of a system that 
allows one group of persons to own the tools which 
are indispensable to the lives of all persons, and thus 
makes the few the absolute masters of the many. So 
long as this system endures, no individual can escape 
from its toils. The industrial juggernaut places each 
man in his position and assigns to him his part. He 
toils or he loafs, he robs or is robbed, according to 
his place in the general industrial scheme. Moral 
sermons and abstract social ethics are helpless against 
this situation, and the political reformers who attempt 
to remove the effects of the baneful system without 
grasping its substance or attacking its foundation are 
ludicrously ineffective. The evil outgrowths of the 
capitalist system can only be cured by the removal of 
its main source and cause — the private ownership of 
the social tools of wealth production. 

The operation of industries as a social function 



22 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

upon a rational and scientific basis is alone capable of 
doing away with the two greatest scourges of modern 
civilization — class war and poverty. 

Class divisions have always existed in the recorded 
history of the human race. But advancing civilization 
has gradually abolished all privileges based on birth 
and caste, and it has been left to the capitalist system 
of production to evolve a new form of economic 
classes based on the relation to the ownership of the 
tools of production. 

The Socialists do not exult in the existence of classes 
and class struggles, and do not "preach" class hatred. 
They merely point out the obvious fact of economic 
classes and class antagonism. It is no more reason- 
able to charge the "Socialist agitator" with fomenting 
class wars than it would be to hold the meteorologist 
responsible for storms. As a matter of fact, the So- 
cialist movement is the only organized force in mod- 
ern society which consciously seeks to abolish all class 
divisions and class struggles. 

Poverty, as such, is of course also not a new and 
specifically capitalistic phenomenon. The poor have 
always been with us. But the poverty of former eras 
was a necessary evil due to the simple fact that man 
had not yet learned to produce a sufficient supply of 
necessaries by means of proper tools. Modern pov- 
erty is entirely artificial and wholly unnecessary. The 
marvelous growth of the productivity of labor within 
the last generations has enabled mankind for the first 
time in history to produce enough to satisfy all rea- 



CAUSES THAT MAKE FOR SOCIALISM 23 

sonable needs of all reasonable human beings. The 
mass-poverty of to-day is due solely to irrational and 
faulty industrial organization. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SOCIALIST AIM. 

THE Socialists demand that the principal indus- 
tries of the nation, the business of providing 
the necessaries of life, be conducted by the com- 
munity for the benefit of its members. 

The fundamental principle upon which society rests 
to-day is that wealth production is purely an individ- 
ual function. Our industries are not organized by 
the people with a view to the needs of the commun- 
ity, but by individual capitalists for private profits. 
Our enterprising captains of industry care little for 
the social value of the goods they produce. They 
will manufacture Bibles or guns, medicine or poison, 
ploughs or flying-machines, all according to the pros- 
pects of gain. 

The fact that ninety millions of their fellow-beings 
in this country need food, clothing, houses, furniture, 
heat, light, books, amusement and means of trans- 
portation and communication to maintain their health 
and comfort, means nothing to them in itself — it is 
merely their opportunity to extract profits. 

Socialism would substitute the prevailing method of 

24 



THE SOCIALIST AIM 25 

private enterprise for individual profit by a system of 
social production for collective use. 

We would not leave our political destinies in the 
hands of a self-constituted oligarchy with power to 
use the government of the United States for their 
individual ends without regard to the popular will or 
public needs, but that is precisely what we are doing 
with our more vital economic interests. 

As democracy means political self-government, so 
Socialism calls for industrial self-government. 

Stated in more concrete terms, the Socialist pro- 
gram requires the public or collective ownership and 
operation of the principal instruments and agencies 
for the production and distribution of wealth — the 
land, mines, railroads, steamboats, telegraph and tele- 
phone lines, mills, factories and modern machinery. 
- This is the main program and the ultimate aim of 
the whole Socialist movement and the political creed 
of all Socialists. It is the unfailing test of Socialist 
adherence, and admits of no limitation, extension or 
variation. Whoever accepts this program is a Social- 
ist, whoever does not, is not. 

Individual Socialists may differ in their general 
social conceptions. They may come to the Socialist 
ideal by various roads. They may disagree with each 
other on questions of methods. But they are all in 
accord on the main object of the movement. The 
common complaint about the "numerous varieties of 
Socialism" springs from a superficial knowledge of 
the Socialist philosophy. As a matter of fact, no 



v, 



26 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

political party has ever advanced a social program 
as definite, consistent and uniform as that of inter- 
national Socialism. 

But simple as is the Socialist program, it signifies 
a revolution in our industrial life and social relations. 
It advocates a new order. Hence it is bound to be 
maligned by the beneficiaries of the present regime 
and misunderstood by the conservative multitude. 

It is safe to assert that no other movement has 
ever been so grossly and persistently misinterpreted. 
A closer analysis of the program as here formulated 
will help to dispel some of the most common mis- 
conceptions. 

As has been stated, Socialism demands the collective 
ownership of the instruments of wealth production. 
This demand is often translated by the critics of the 
movement into the unceremonious formula: "Social- 
ism stands for a division of wealth." The chancellor 
of one of our metropolitan universities recently spent 
his well-earned vacation on the other side of the 
Atlantic, and on that occasion was received in audi- 
ence by King Haakon, then just called to the newly 
created or vacated throne of Norway. On his return 
to this country the learned chancellor in a published 
interview expressed his admiration of the intelligence 
and sound common sense of the young ruler. As evi- 
dence of these commendable qualities, the professor 
related the following conversation between himself 
and his majesty (I quote from memory) : "What 
progress is Socialism making in your country?'* in- 



THE SOCIALIST AIM 27 

quired the American savant. "Oh, it is growing 
some/' observed the king, "but it is not a serious 
menace. Socialism is bound to fail because of the 
utter silliness of its program. Suppose we should to- 
day divide the wealth of Norway equally among all 
inhabitants. An hour after the process a new baby 
is born. What then? Should we proceed to a new 
redistribution, or should the baby be left entirely des- 
titute ?" Both his majesty and our chancellor agreed 
that Socialism put the baby, and the baby put Social- 
ism into a most awkward predicament. By one sim- 
ple hypothesis two great minds had once more de- 
stroyed a Socialist ghost of their own creation to the 
entire satisfaction of themselves. 

Socialism, of course, does not advocate a division 
of wealth. The Socialist program does not deal with 
consumable wealth but with productive wealth; it does 
not assail wealth as a means of private enjoyment, 
but wealth as an instrument of social oppression and 
exploitation. The Socialists would socialize the tools 
of production, not the products. 

They view with placid indifference the private 
ownership of dwelling houses and gowns, automobiles 
and yachts. They do not even covet the innocent in- 
dividual tool, and do not reach out an avaricious hand 
for the artist's paint brush or the housewife's needle 
or sewing machine. What they object to is the indi- 
vidual ownership of social instruments of work, the 
sources or implements of general wealth, operated 
by the masses, producing goods for the "market," and 



28 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

indispensable to the life and well-being of society as 
a whole. 

And even within this restricted area the Socialist 
plan is not one of division or distribution, but, on 
the contrary, one of common and undivided owner- 
ship. The principle may be illustrated by comparison 
with the functions and character of our public streets. 
The streets are the common or public property of 
our cities. They are laid out, paved and repaired at 
public expense. They are maintained for our joint 
use and benefit. We all own them. But we do not 
divide up the cobblestones ratably among all citi- 
zens. 

And similarly unfounded is the widespread notion 
that Socialism stands for equal reward of all labor. 
Socialism is opposed to the practice of allowing the 
idlers to appropriate part of the workers* product in 
the shape of profits. It demands that the total social 
product, after due allowance for social needs, go un- 
curtailed to all persons participating in the process of 
production by manual or mental labor. But it does 
not contemplate an equal distribution of the product 
among the individual workers. Socialism admits of 
reasonable variations in the scale of compensation 
based on the conventional distinctions of effort, skill 
and ability. The oft-expressed fear that a Socialist 
system of production would destroy personal ambition 
and deprive the individual of an incentive to put forth 
his best efforts, is based on a confusion between the 
crude communism which preaches community of 



THE SOCIALIST AIM 29 

goods and equality of reward, and Socialism which 
has not the remotest kinship with it. 

Another source of persistent misinterpretation 
lurks in the term "public" or "collective" ownership 
as used in the formulation of the Socialist program. 
The superficial critics of the Socialist philosophy in- 
variably identify that expression with "government 
ownership," and thence jump at the conclusion that 
the Socialists contemplate a state of society in which 
all industries of the country, large and small, will be 
operated and directed from one great national center. 
This is the origin and foundation of the bugaboo of 
"Socialist paternalism and tyranny." 

Not so long ago, Mr. David M. Parry, one time 
president of the National Manufacturers' Associa- 
tion, wrote a novel entitled "The Scarlet Empire," 
and mainly centering around a description of "the 
Socialist state" as the author conceived it. It was a 
horrible state. Governmental regulation was the rule 
in all private and public pursuits of the citizens. The 
government fixed the occupation of each person, pre- 
pared a uniform menu for all inhabitants from day 
to day, prescribed the fashion, cut and pattern of their 
dress, and regulated their routine of daily life, their 
religion, marriages and amusements. It was a reign 
of relentless tyranny, a life of insufferable uniform- 
ity and monotony. Mr. Parry had set himself the 
task of conjuring a picture of an order of society even 
more oppressive than our present regime, and he al- 
most succeeded. 



30 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

The book was intended as a satire on the Socialist 
ideal. If the genial author could only appreciate what 
a delightful satire he had unconsciously produced on 
the mental caliber of a certain class of critics of the 
Socialist philosophy! 

Public ownership does not necessarily mean gov- 
ernment ownership, and government ownership does 
not imply centralized administration. In the practi- 
cal application of the Socialist scheme of industrial 
organization, it is quite conceivable that certain indus- 
tries would be operated by the national government. 
Railroad systems, telegraph and telephone lines are 
inherently national in their functions, and many other 
industries are already organized on a country-wide 
scale and adjusted to centralized operations. To the 
latter class belong all great trustified industries. On 
the other hand, other important industries are purely 
local in their character, and can best be administered 
by local governmental agencies. Street railways, 
water and gas works for instance, must logically come 
within the purview of municipal governments, and 
numerous smaller industries may be conducted by 
local co-operative groups under appropriate rules and 
regulations. It is even conceivable that some callings 
may be continued to be exercised in a purely individual 
way under a Socialist regime. There is no reason 
why the state should interfere with the individual 
pursuits of arts and handicraft or with the farmer 
personally cultivating his farm. What Socialism op- 
poses is industrial exploitation of one man by an- 



THE SOCIALIST AIM 31 

other; what it advocates is social and democratic pro- 
duction rationally organized and conducted. 

A very illuminating analogy of such a scheme of 
organization is offered by the political framework 
of the government of the United States. Our laws 
are made and administered by "the government," but 
does that mean that the political administration of the 
country in all its divisions and subdivisions is lodged 
in the hands of one central authority? By no means. 
We have our federal statutes, our state laws, muni- 
cipal ordinances and rules and regulations of subordi- 
nate local bodies, such as health boards, fire and 
police departments, etc. Each class of laws operates 
within its own proper sphere, and is administered by 
executive bodies or individuals elected or appointed 
and classified and graded according to their functions 
and places in the general administrative scheme. The 
political functions of the country are not exercised by 
a power above the people and independent of them, 
nor are they regulated in all particulars and at all 
times by the direct action of all the people. Our 
government is neither a bureaucracy nor a system of 
mob rule. In its purest form it is a rational democ- 
racy, which allows its affairs to be administered by 
appropriate general and local agencies, deriving their 
powers from the people and exercising them in con- 
formity with their will. Our official government 
furthermore is supplemented by a number of volun- 
tary "quasi-official" institutions, philanthropic, educa- 
tional, political, etc., whose powers and functions are 



32 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

as a rule regulated by law. We do not allow such 
voluntary institutions to exercise vital political powers 
affecting the rights of the citizens, but we do not 
interfere with their self-imposed social tasks so long 
as they only concern those who choose to come within 
the sphere of their operations. The Socialists de- 
mand that our industrial affairs be reorganized on 
practically the same general principles as our politi- 
cal system. 

It is quite conceivable and even probable that our 
present machinery of government, devised for purely 
political purposes, would prove inadequate for the 
discharge of large economic functions. In that case it 
would either gradually modify its forms to meet the 
requirements of the new tasks or be supplemented by 
a co-ordinate system of industrial administration. 

"But then the industries of the country would be 
controlled by the politicians and infested with graft 
and corruption, " objects the ever ready critic. The 
Socialists see no ground for such apprehension. The 
"professional politician," in the opprobrious sense of 
the term, as we know him to-day, is a person who 
seeks private economic advantages in public life, and 
uses his political office or influence for the promotion 
of his own pecuniary profits or those of certain busi- 
ness interests behind him. Graft and corruption are 
the only logical methods and the principal stock in 
trade of such "statesmen." 

Socialized industries would exclude all large pri- 
vate business interests, and thus strike at the very root 



THE SOCIALIST AIM 33 

of professional politics for private gain and the main 
fountain-head of wholesale graft and corruption. 

The Socialist program is thus primarily one of eco- 
nomic reform. It is not directly concerned with re- 
ligious or domestic institutions, moral conceptions or 
intellectual problems. It does not ''threaten the 
home" or "attack religion," and is not hostile to true 
modern culture. It advocates a definite plan of in- 
dustrial reorganization and is chargeable with all that 
is fairly inferable from that plan, but no more. 

Socialism has for that reason sometimes been char- 
acterized as a grossly materialistic movement. It is 
anything but that. The Socialists appreciate very 
keenly all efficient political, social and moral reforms. 
But they expect such reforms to follow economic im- 
provements as the effect follows the cause. 'The com- 
mon ownership of the sources and instruments of 
wealth production would necessarily mean a more 
equitable distribution of wealth among the people and 
greater economic security for all human beings. It 
would thus do away with the mad competitive strug- 
gle for individual gain, and would remove the princi- 
pal cause of civic and political corruption, crime, vice, 
brutality and ignorance. Just because the Socialist 
movement is based on a solid and sound economic 
foundation, it holds out a true social ideal. 



*s 



CHAPTER III. 

THE TREND OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

IN the Socialist conception economic systems and 
political institutions are not immutable forms. 
They are products of gradual growth and subject 
to incessant change. The present system of industry 
has not been consciously planned and devised by cun- 
ning capitalist minds. It has evolved from an older 
economic order by a series of imperceptible changes, 
accumulating steadily and irresistibly through several 
centuries. The feudal regime, which preceded the 
modern or capitalist order, had its economic root in 
agriculture, and was characterized by serfdom of 
labor and the rule of the land-owning nobles. Slowly 
and gradually commerce and manufacture grew up 
alongside of the predominant industry of agriculture. 
The discovery of America and of a sea route to the 
Indies and the introduction and perfection of the mar- 
iner's compass gave a tremendous impetus to naviga- 
tion and trading, and trading stimulated manufacture. 
The growth of commerce and manufacture engen- 
dered a general search for labor-saving devices, and 
led to the era of epoch-making industrial inventions. 
The latter half of the eighteenth century witnessed 

34 



TREND OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 35 

the appearance of the first great mechanical devices 
in industry. Hargreave's spinning-jenny, Arkwright's 
mill, Cartwright's power-loom, Watts' engine and 
Whitney's cotton gin were all invented within the brief 
period of 1704- 179 2, and railways were in operation 
within the first quarter of the last century. These 
inventions in turn served to unfold trade and manu- 
facture in ever-accelerating measure. Factories were 
built and lured the farm laborers. Cities were found- 
ed and attracted the rural population. Merchants and 
manufacturers amassed fortunes, and with material 
wealth came social recognition and political power. 
Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century com- 
merce and manufacture had grown to be serious rivals 
to agriculture. The traders and manufacturers, the 
incipient modern capitalists, engaged in a contest for 
political supremacy with the landed nobility. Towards 
the end of the century the great social conflict was 
fought out. Agriculture receded to the background, 
yielding the command of the economic world-forces 
to manufacture, commerce and finance. Feudalism was 
dethroned by triumphant capitalism. Government 
passed from the lord of the manor to the autocrat of 
the factory, shop and counting-room, from the aris- 
tocracy of birth to the aristocracy of the purse. With 
the passing of the old economic regime, its political 
counterpart, the feudal form of government, was dis- 
carded, and a new political dress, adjusted to the 
strong and growing limbs and the free and rapid 
movements of the new economic body, was devised. 



36 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

The countless miniature kingdoms and principalities 
were consolidated into large nations following the 
transformation of the small workshops for local trade 
into big factories for the national market. Autocratic 
monarchies were supplanted by constitutional king- 
doms or republics, as the absolute rule of the feudal 
lord in his domain yielded to the business contract in 
the new economic order. Courts and court cliques 
were succeeded by parliaments and chosen representa- 
tives, as the hereditary noble was replaced by the 
"self-made" man of affairs. The "will of the king," 
the basis of the feudal political order, was displaced 
by the controlling political principle of "popular lib- 
erty," reflecting the triumph of free competition in 
industry over the crystallized, localized forms of 
medieval agriculture and the absolute rule of the 
feudal lord over his manor. 

Thus the modern or capitalist order of society, eco- 
nomic, political and social evolved gradually within 
the loins of the feudal order, and is in turn bound to 
give birth to a new social order. For every economic 
or social system of society is good only for a limited 
time. History assigns a certain role to it, and when 
its part is played and its task performed, the curtain 
of the ages opens upon the next act in the eternal 
drama of human progress. The feudal regime in its 
very bloom contained the germs of the capitalist sys- 
tem, and capitalism even to-day germinates a new and 
superior social order — Socialism. 

Socialism, as an economic and political principle, 



TREND OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 37 

had begun to grow within the very heart of capitalist 
society generations ago, and to-day it has already at- 
tained to a respectable size. 

The gentlemen who so learnedly assure us of the 
"impracticability" or "impossibility" of Socialism, 
take the same enlightened stand as the familiar lad 
in the menagerie, who, after critically examining the 
eccentricities of form of the giraffe, judiciously an- 
nounces, "There ain't no such animal." We are at 
least ankle-deep in Socialism already, and it is not 
improbable that the future historian will date the be- 
ginnings of the Socialist regime from, say, the middle 
of the last century, just as we are now placing the 
beginnings of the capitalist era a century or more back 
of the great French Revolution. 

It is not difficult to discern the Socialist germs in 
present society. 

The capitalist order was in its inception based al- 
most entirely on the principles of individual effort in 
production and unrestricted competition in the man- 
agement of industries. The individualistic laissez 
faire doctrine which was proclaimed by the founders 
of the "classical" school of economics, was but the 
academic reflection of the convictions, sentiment and, 
it may be added, interests of the capitalist class in its 
bloom. This doctrine, which holds that all industrial 
needs and relations are adjusted automatically by the 
free play of the forces of supply and demand, with- 
out interference or regulation, has gained such uni- 
versal currency that it dominates the average mind 



38 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

even to-day. The orthodox lecturer or text-book 
writer on political economy is still earnestly discuss- 
ing the merits of individual enterprise as against col- 
lective action and the advantages of competition over 
combination. He stubbornly refuses to notice that the 
mute forces of economic development, unconcerned 
by his learned theories and abstractions, have nullified 
the very basis of his argument, and are rapidly de- 
stroying individual effort and competition in industry. 
It always has been the privilege of our men of learn- 
ing to live on the thoughts and facts of past ages. 

The modern factories, mines, railroads and other 
great industrial enterprises are co-operative institu- 
tions in their work and methods of production. Per- 
fected machinery and division of labor have entirely 
obliterated the individuality of the worker's product. 
The individual worker in modern, up-to-date indus- 
tries does not produce consumable commodities or 
render usable service. He creates particles and per- 
forms fractional operations, useless and meaningless 
by themselves, and acquiring value and significance 
only in conjunction with other fractional products 
created by their fellow workers. Production has de- 
veloped into a distinctly social process — the collec- 
tive efforts of the workers sustain our modern indus- 
tries — their individual efforts, standing alone, count 
for nothing. And similarly with the principle of com- 
petition in the management of industries. The entire 
trend of modern economic development has been away 
from competition and towards combination. The true 



TREND OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 39 

meaning of the great trust movement of the last 
generation is just this simple fact, that competition 
has become inadequate and incompatible with the mod- 
ern large-scale industry, and must yield to combina- 
tion. Probably one half of our staple commodities 
are to-day produced and marketed without competi- 
tion, and it is only a question of a short time when 
combination will become the absolute rule in industry. 

It is not contended that factories or trusts are in- 
stalments of the Socialist commonwealth. Under 
their present system of private and capitalistic owner- 
ship they are anything but that. But what the Socialists 
claim is that both factories and trusts, represent a 
distinct tendency towards co-operation in industry and 
are developing the material basis for a Socialist form 
of industrial organization. 

And in the domain of modern politics and legisla- 
tion the socialistic tendencies have been even more 
pronounced than in the industrial field. 

The modern industrial state came into existence as 
a protest against the excessive centralization and 
paternalism of the feudal state. It was organized on 
the principle of non-interference with the affairs of 
the citizens. It proclaimed the doctrine that that state 
governs best which governs least, and it tried to gov- 
ern as little as possible, leaving it to the citizens of 
all conditions, ages and sexes to fight their own bat- 
tles. "Administrative Nihilism, " to borrow an ex- 
pression from Huxley, was the rule of politics and 
legislation just as laissez faire was the law of industry. 



40 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

These conceptions of the functions of the state and 
legislation probably had some justification in the early 
phases of our era, when the social contrasts were not 
very marked, and the opportunities were abundant for 
all men. 

But when the unprecedented economic development 
of the last generations finally divided the population 
of every advanced country into distinct economic 
classes, the working class devoid of property and 
opportunity and dependent for the very right to live 
upon the powerful capitalist class, the owners of all 
national industries; when the struggle for existence 
became an unequal, cruel war between the weak and 
the strong, the principle of non-interference by state 
and legislation lost its justification. Gradually and 
steadily the government assumed the task of protect- 
ing its helpless and defenseless members from the op- 
pression of their powerful and inconsiderate fellow 
men. Gradually it also began to realize that the work 
of providing food, clothing, shelter and other neces- 
saries for the population is not individual sport, but 
a social function. The state and the legislatures have 
openly invaded the domain of "private" industry, and 
they claim the right to exercise control over it. 

When in 1802 Sir Robert Peel introduced in the 
British Parliament the first bill for the regulation of 
the labor of apprenticed children, it was denounced 
as revolutionary, and dire disasters were predicted 
from its adoption. The measure was called forth by 
the inhuman conditions in the English cotton mills to 



TREND OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 41 

which thousands of orphaned and pauper children of 
the most tender ages were bound out by the parishes. 
The unfortunate children were forced to work prac- 
tically without interruption, and when they dropped 
from exhaustion they would be carried to the 
crowded, pent-up and filthy barracks adjoining the 
mills. There they were allowed to rest until taken 
to work again early on the following morning. They 
were growing up under conditions of physical, mental 
and moral degeneracy, a menace to the future labor- 
ing population of England. The Peel Bill provided 
for some restriction upon this heartless exploitation. 
It was opposed by the liberal statesmen of England as 
an attempted legislative invasion of the rights of the 
working children. The measure was finally passed 
under the pretext that it was a mere amendment of 
the old Elizabethan "Apprenticeship Act." But its 
passage marked the doom of the individualistic doc- 
trine in politics and legislation. It established the 
principle of state protection for the working class. In 
England the law of 1802 was followed first by the 
timid amendments of 18 19, 1825 and 1833, then by 
the more radical enactments of the latter half of the 
last century. Starting with the regulation of appren- 
ticed children, it soon extended its operation to the 
"free" working children, then to the working women 
and finally to all workers. From England the princi- 
ple of factory legislation spread to the United States, 
Germany, France and Switzerland, and gradually it 
established itself in all industrial countries. 



42 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

About thirty-five years ago, Prince Bismarck, Ger- 
many's "Iron" Chancellor, proclaimed the duty of the 
state to take care of its disabled, sick and aged work- 
ingmen, the veterans and invalids of the modern in- 
dustrial warfare. Germany introduced the system of 
state insurance for workingmen against accidents, 
sickness and disability and old age pensions, and its 
example was soon followed by almost all advanced 
countries of Europe and Australia. 

Within the last generations the legislatures of all 
countries have begun to supervise and regulate the 
most vital branches of business, the slaughter houses 
and bakeries, the railroads and steamships, banking 
and insurance, and many industries of a similar char- 
acter. They prescribe the conditions upon which these 
industries may exist and operate, and they interfere 
actively and directly in the management of "their" 
affairs. The legislature goes even farther — it under- 
takes to limit the individual wealth of its citizens by 
the enactment of laws for progressive income, inher- 
itance and other taxes. 

The United States is the only civilized country in 
the world which does not provide through govern- 
ment channels for its aged or disabled workers, and 
it also has the distinction of being the only republic 
on the face of the globe which calmly allowed five 
individuals to annul its income tax system inaugurated 
by Congress and approved by the people. But even 
American conservatism is visibly beginning to surren- 
der to the irresistible forces of universal social pro- 



TREND OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 43 

gress. Almost all the industrial states of the Union are 
introducing or planning at least some crude forms of 
workmen's compensation or state labor insurance, and 
most states have established progressive income and 
inheritance tax laws. In other domains of social legis- 
lation the United States does not lag much behind the 
countries of Europe. We have our labor laws, in- 
adequate as they are, our anti-combination acts, inter- 
state commerce commission, public service commis- 
sions and state control and regulation in numerous 
industries. 

These political measures and institutions are no 
more to be considered as an earnest of the Socialist 
state than the factories and trusts as partial realiza- 
tions of the Socialist economic system, but like them 
they are of immense symptomatic importance. 

The modern principle of control and regulation of 
industries by the government indicates the complete 
collapse of the purely capitalist ideal of non-interfer- 
ence, and signifies that the government may change 
from an instrument of class rule and exploitation into 
one of social regulation and protection. Like the 
industries, the government is becoming socialized. 
The general tendency of both is distinctly towards a 
Socialist order. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE METHODS OF SOCIALISM. 

THE Socialist conception of industrial and politi- 
cal evolution as sketched in the preceding chap- 
ter, has been variously characterized by critics 
of the movement as a "Philosophy of Fatalism" or as 
"Political Calvinism." The mistake underlying this 
criticism is the notion that the Socialists expect the final 
realization of their social ideal to come about auto- 
matically through the unconscious workings of the 
inherent forces of social development. As a matter of 
fact, the Socialists are very far from harboring any 
such illusion. They hold that no system can be radi- 
cally changed until it is ripe for the transformation, 
and they consider the degree of development of every 
country of prime importance in determining whether 
it offers fertile ground for the success of Socialism. 
But they realize that the mere maturity of a country 
for the Socialist regime will nob produee Socialism 
without conscious, planned and deliberate action on 
the part of such portion of the people as have the 
desire, power and sagacity to accomplish the concrete 
task of the socialization of the industries and the re- 
organization of our government to that end. If we 

44 



THE METHODS OF SOCIALISM 45 

attempt to grow oranges, we must first make sure that 
we have selected the proper soil and climate, but the 
soil and climate will not produce oranges unless we 
sow the seed and tend, care for, and aid the plant 
during all stages of its growth. Or to take an historic 
illustration. The ruling classes of to-day, the capital- 
ists, could not and did not gain political supremacy 
until they had attained economic ascendency, but when 
that point was reached their actual political victories 
were brought about by the propaganda of their writ- 
ers and speakers, the French Encyclopaedists, the 
English Rationalists, Utilitarians, etc., by the work 
of their leaders and statesmen, and above all, by the 
organizations of their class and its supporters. 

The introduction of the Socialist regime depends 
on two main conditions : 

First : The economic situation of the country must 
be ripe for the change. 

Second: The people of the country must be ready 
for it. 

The first condition takes care of itself. The task 
of the Socialist movement is to bring about the second 
condition, and it is this aim which determines the 
methods and the practical program of the movement. 

Whether the Socialist order is to be ushered in by a 
revolutionary decree, or by a series of legislative 
enactments or executive proclamations, it can be estab- 
lished and maintained only by the people in control 
of the country. In other words, Socialism, like any 
other national political program, can be realized only 



46 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

when its adherents, sympathizers and supporters, are 
numerous enough to wrest the machinery of govern- 
ment from their opponents, and to use it for the real- 
ization of their program. The only previous time in 
the history of the United States that the country could 
boast of a political party with a social program was 
when the Republican Party was first organized for 
the abolition of slavery, and that program was not 
realized until the party was strong enough to win a 
national election. The Civil War does not alter this 
cardinal fact. It simply meant that the minority was 
not ready to give up without a fight, but if the aboli- 
tionists had not been in control of the government 
there would obviously be no provocation for the fight 
and no chance for the victory. 

Experience has demonstrated that as soon as the 
Socialist Party develops menacing political strength, 
all non-Socialist parties combine against it. Mil- 
waukee is not the only illustration of this tendency. 
The same practice has been followed in all countries 
of Europe in which the Socialist movement is an im- 
portant political factor, and will in time undoubtedly 
become the accepted rule in the United States. To be 
victorious, the Socialists will, therefore, in all likeli- 
hood require an absolute majority of the voters and 
the population. Not necessarily an absolute majority 
of trained Socialist thinkers and workers, but a ma- 
jority of persons generally ready to cast their for- 
tunes with the Socialist movement. 

The first task of the Socialist movement is thus to 



THE METHODS OF SOCIALISM 47 

increase the number of Socialists, to convert the peo- 
ple to the Socialist creed. Socialism is primarily a 
movement of education and propaganda. The Social- 
ist propaganda does not originate from a mere desire 
to spread the truth — for the benefit of the uncon- 
verted, as the Christian propaganda is inspired by a 
general ethical zeal to save the souls of the heathen. 
The Socialist propaganda is the very life-nerve of 
the movement. Upon its success or failure depends 
the destiny of Socialism. The educational and pro- 
pagandist activities dominate all other forms of or- 
ganized Socialist work, and none but the closest ob- 
servers can appreciate the gigantic accomplishments 
of the movement in this field. 

In the recent Presidential campaign, the National 
Campaign Committee of the Socialist Party printed 
and circulated thirteen millions of pamphlets. The 
pamphlets as a rule consisted of sixteen pages and 
dealt with the most vital and timely social problems 
from a Socialist point of view. The numerous state 
and local organizations of the party at the same time 
printed and distributed at least an equal number of 
pamphlets or leaflets, and thus no less than twenty-five 
million pieces of Socialist literature were given to the 
people of this country to read and study within the 
three months preceding the election of 191 2. But 
the Socialist propaganda is by no means limited to 
campaigns. The dissemination of Socialist literature 
goes on steadily and systematically, though on a 
smaller scale, every day of the year, and it is not con- 



48 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

fined to pamphleteering. The Socialist Party in this 
country is supported by numerous periodical publica- 
tions : daily and weekly newspapers and monthly mag- 
azines. Every language of any importance spoken 
in this country, about thirty in all, is represented in 
the Socialist press. Some of the Socialist publications 
count their circulation by hundreds of thousands, and 
all of them are primarily given to propaganda. Un- 
like the ordinary press, their political creed is not a 
mere incident to them — it is the entire object and 
reason for their existence. They are published to 
preach Socialism; every other consideration is sub- 
ordinated to that purpose. 

And side by side with the propaganda of the print- 
ed word goes the equally effective oral propaganda. 
The Socialist Party has 130,000 dues-paying mem- 
bers, and almost every one of these is an ardent propa- 
gandist. If he is not blessed with the gift of public 
oratory, he talks Socialism at his home, in his shop, 
in his union, in his club or saloon. Thousands of 
meetings are held every year in all parts of the coun- 
try — public demonstrations, campaign meetings, de- 
bates or lectures, and all of them deal with the one 
paramount topic — Socialism. In the winter of 191 1- 
19 1 2 the National Executive Committee of the So- 
cialist Party established a "Socialist Lecture Lyceum 
Bureau," and more than two thousand lectures were 
delivered under its auspices during the initial season 
of that institution. 

And with all that it must be borne in mind that 



THE METHODS OF SOCIALISM 49 

the Socialist movement is only beginning to gain a 
foothold in this country. Its educational and propa- 
ganda work is tame compared with the accomplish- 
ment of the older and stronger Socialist movements 
in the countries of Europe. The work of Socialist 
education all over the world is probably the most 
active intellectual factor operating in modern society. 
The Socialists do not address themselves to an in- 
discriminate audience. They realize that their pro- 
gram does not appeal with equal force to all classes 
of the people. Socialism aims at the destruction of 
all economic privileges and all class rule. The Social- 
ists contend that the realization of their program will 
ultimately benefit the entire human race, but they fully 
and frankly recognize that its immediate effects will 
be damaging to the beneficiaries of the present order 
and advantageous to its victims. In other words, So- 
cialism necessarily involves an immediate material loss 
to the capitalist classes — and a corresponding gain to 
the working classes. The Socialists, therefore, make 
their appeal primarily to the workers. They do not 
disdain the support of men and women from the more 
privileged classes. A rather considerable proportion 
of active Socialists has always been recruited from the 
ranks of non-workers. But numerous as these cases 
may be, they are still exceptions to the rule. An in- 
dividual may be guided by purely ethical motives and 
rise above his material advantages, but economic 
classes as such are always moved by their immediate 
interests. The capitalist revolution was organized and 



SO SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

led by the capitalists, although a number of nobles, 
inspired by the new spirit of "liberty and democracy," 
made common cause with the enemies of their own 
class. 

Nor are the Socialist activities confined to the work 
of propaganda. Modern Socialists do not expect the 
Socialist order to be introduced by one sudden and 
great political cataclysm, nor do they expect it to be 
established by a rabble made desperate by misery and 
starvation. The Socialists expect that the co-operative 
commonwealth will be planfully built by an intelli- 
gent and disciplined working class, thoroughly organ- 
ized, well trained, and fully qualified to assume the 
reins of government and the management of the in- 
dustries. Next to the education of the workers in 
the philosophy of Socialism, the prime task of the 
Socialist movement is, therefore, their political and 
economic organization. The Socialist movement of 
each country presents itself primarily as a political 
party, the party of the working class. Like all other 
political parties, the Socialist Party nominates candi- 
dates and strives to win elections and to pass legisla- 
tive measures, but unlike other parties it attributes but 
slight importance to such temporary political victories. 
The deeper objects of Socialist politics are: (i) To 
make propaganda for the cause of Socialism, for 
which political campaigns always offer favorable op- 
portunities. (2) To acquaint the workers with the 
concrete political problems of the country and to edu- 
cate them in practical politics. (3) To gain repre- 



THE METHODS OF SOCIALISM 51 

sentation in the legislatures and in municipal admin- 
istrations in order to secure true reforms for the work- 
ers, to train them in the art of statesmanship and to 
afford them larger opportunities for propaganda. 
(4) To wean the workers from the influence of the 
old parties, to develop their political independence 
and class consciousness and to organize them for the 
final practical task of the Socialist movement — the 
winning of the government by the workers. 

This view accounts for the seeming peculiarities of 
Socialist politics — the insistence of the Socialist Party 
in nominating full tickets even where its candidates 
have not the remotest chance of election, and its 
obstinate refusal to combine with any other party for 
any purpose. For the ultimate aim of Socialism the 
clearness, integrity and purity of the movement mean 
more than office or temporary political success. 

In the Socialist conception, politics is only a means 
to an end. Temporary and local political power is 
valuable, mainly as affording an opportunity for eco- 
nomic reform, and the final national political victory 
of the workers will be of vital importance only as a 
necessary preliminary to the introduction of the sys- 
tem of collective and co-operative industries. A gen- 
eral political victory of the workers would be barren 
of results if the workers were not at the same time 
prepared to take over the management of the indus- 
tries. The Socialists, therefore, seek to train the 
workers in economic no less than in political self-gov- 
ernment. 



52 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

It is for that reason that the movement every- 
where seeks alliance with the economic organiza- 
tions of labor, the trade-unions and the co-operative 
societies. 

The trade and labor-unions are an efficient instrument 
for the organization of the productive forces of in- 
dustry, the co-operative movement trains the work- 
ers in the independent, collective management of in- 
dustrial processes. The Socialists are ever active in 
the organization of trade-unions and co-operative 
workingmen's societies and in the support of their 
work and struggles. In Germany, Austria and other 
countries in which the Socialist movement antedated 
the economic organizations of labor, the latter largely 
owe their existence to the Socialists. In Belgium and 
the Scandinavian countries the Socialist Party, trade- 
unions and co-operative societies are almost organ- 
ically united. In the English-speaking countries, in 
which the beginning of the Socialist movement found 
the economic organizations of labor fully established, 
the Socialists bend every effort to bring about a 
friendly understanding with them and a policy of mu- 
tual support. The Socialist activities in the economic 
organizations of labor are not mere meddling or polit- 
ical flirtation. They are an organic part of the prac- 
tical work of the Socialist Party. Socialism, trade- 
unionism and the co-operative movement are but 
different phases of the general modern labor move- 
ment. Within their respective spheres all of them, 
consciously or unconsciously, make for the same goal, 



THE METHODS OF SOCIALISM 53 

and each of them gains strength and efficacy from the 
support of the others. 

The struggles of labor have besides another deep 
social significance for the Socialists. Every material 
improvement in the workers' lives tends to raise their 
intellectual level, and to develop their ability to or- 
ganize and fight for a social ideal. The Socialist 
movement recruits its adherents mostly from among 
the better situated, better trained and more intelligent 
workers. The unfortunate "slum proletarians," 
whose energies, hopes and ambitions have been 
crushed out by misery and destitution, can only rarely 
be relied on to rally to the virile battle cry of So- 
cialism. 

The main points in the Socialist program of prac- 
tical work may thus be summarized under the 
three heads of Education, Organization and Strug- 
gle for the Material Improvement of the Working 
Class. 

Within the last few years there has developed in 
the United States a group of persons who advocate 
the addition of certain alleged new and more direct 
and effective weapons to the arsenal of the Socialist 
warfare. The general strike and resort to drastic 
and violent methods in labor struggles are the favor- 
ite measures thus advocated. They go by the some- 
what vague designation of "direct action," "sabot- 
age," etc., and their advocates style themselves "syn- 
dicalists" or "direct actionists." They are small in 
number, but exceedingly active, and the sensational 



54 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

press of the country is giving them a generous amount 
of benevolent attention. 

The movement is not serious and will not change 
the character of American Socialism. It is an expres- 
sion of impatience and despair, which is quite natural, 
though not justifiable, in the period of youth and 
weakness of the Socialist movement. When Social- 
ism grows strong and enters upon a career of true 
struggles and accomplishments, the syndicalist notions 
are bound to disappear. In Germany, Austria, Bel- 
gium and the Scandinavian countries syndicalism is an 
unknown quantity, but it flourishes in the countries 
in which the Socialist movement is least organized and 
stable, Italy and France. In fact, American syndi- 
calism has been bodily imported from France with 
its entire undigested and untranslated terminology. 

Guerrilla methods of warfare, chicanery and vio- 
lence have no legitimate place in the methods of mod- 
ern Socialism. They are at variance with the most 
fundamental conceptions of the movement. 

The objective point of the Socialist attack is the 
capitalist system, not the individual capitalists. The 
struggles of the movement represent the organized 
efforts of the entire working class, not the daring of 
the individual leader or hero. The intellectual level 
and political ripeness of the working class are deter- 
mined by the training of the men and women consti- 
tuting that class, and not by the more advanced visions 
of a small group of it. A country can be educated, 
led and transformed into Socialism, but it can not be 



THE METHODS OF SOCIALISM 55 

driven, lured or bulldozed into it. The Socialist con- 
ception of the world process is evolutionary, not cata- 
clysmic. Socialism has come to build, not to destroy. 
This accepted position of the modern Socialist move- 
ment is, however, not to be taken as an assurance or 
prediction that the Socialist victory will in all cases 
come about by orderly and peaceful methods, and will 
not be accompanied by violence. It may well happen 
that the classes in power here or there will refuse to 
yield the control of the government to the working 
class even after a legitimate political victory. In 
that case a violent conflict will necessarily result, as it 
did under somewhat similar circumstances in 1861. 
But such spectacular and sanguinary outbreaks, which 
sometimes accompany radical economic and political 
changes, are purely incidental — they do not make the 
social transformation. Thus in England the revolu- 
tion, which transferred the actual control of the coun- 
try from the nobility to the capitalists, was accom- 
plished by gradual and peaceful stages, without vio- 
lence or bloodshed. In France the same process cul- 
minated in the ferocious fights of the Great Revolu- 
tion of 1789. But who will say that the transition in 
England was less thorough and radical than in 
France? As a matter of fact, street fights do not 
make a social revolution any more than fire-crackers 
make the Fourth of July. 

It is sometimes helpful to elucidate an abstract prin- 
ple by a concrete and simple example. The manner 
in which the present order is to change into Socialism 



56 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

may be illustrated by the familiar process of chicken- 
hatching. 

A normal chicken egg will be converted into a live 
chicken if kept twenty-one days in a temperature of 
98^ degrees. 

Now observe some of the most striking phases of 
the process. 

An egg is entirely and radically different from a 
chicken, in form and substance. Under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, it can be readily determined whether an 
object is the one or the other. But after the egg has 
passed a few days in the life-producing temperature 
eradiating from the hatching hen, its identity is no 
longer so clear. The embryo of the chicken may be 
discerned in the contents of the egg. And every day 
thereafter the substance of the egg continues chang- 
ing — every day it becomes a little less egg and a little 
more chicken, until on the last day nothing is left of 
the egg but the form, the substance inside is a live, 
complete and fully organized chicken. Similarly the 
feudal order of society is quite distinct from the cap- 
italist order. Europe of the fifteenth century presents 
a system of unalloyed feudalism; Europe of the end 
of the eighteenth century is just as unmistakably cap- 
italistic, but Europe of the seventeenth century is like 
the egg in the early periods of hatching — it represents 
a feudal form of government with a decided capitalist 
embryo inside of it. And so likewise the capitalist 
egg has been set to hatching generations ago, and to- 
day it contains a noticeable Socialist embryo notwith- 



THE METHODS OF SOCIALISM 57 

standing the deceiving appearance of the egg-shell. 

Further : during the entire process of incubation the 
shell of the egg has remained intact. Every drop of 
its fluid contents has been changed into flesh, bones 
and feathers, but the shell has not been absorbed or 
modified by the process — it has obstinately persisted 
in holding within its grip the new substance instead 
of the old. Now for a loose and liquid egg, a hard 
shell is a very convenient cover, but it becomes rather 
a nuisance to a young, enthusiastic chick. As soon as 
the latter develops sufficient strength and sense, it 
just cracks the old shell from the inside. The shell 
breaks into a number of fragments with great noise, 
the rebellious chick jumps out, and to the superficial 
observer this act appears to be the revolution which 
has converted the egg into the chicken. As a matter 
of fact, however, the actual revolution has taken place 
in the gradual growth of the chicken embryo at the 
expense of the egg substance. The breaking of the 
shell was but a manifestation of the accomplishment 
of the more significant process inside. Had the shell 
been soft and yielding, it would not even have to be 
forcibly cracked. The street fight, barricades and 
armed conflicts which occasionally accompany a social 
revolution are the cracking of the superficial political 
shell — the revolutions themselves are slowly accom- 
plished within the industrial substance of society. 

The breaking of the shell becomes a useful and 
liberating act only when the chicken is fully developed 
within it. When that point is reached, the chicken 



58 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

itself takes care of the shell. The hen has nothing 
to do with that part of the performance. It is her 
business to sit on the egg the full period of time re- 
quired for hatching, to supply the proper heat and 
not to shirk her task for any period of time. Should 
the hen become impatient or get into her feathery 
head a syndicalist notion to "hasten the process," and 
should she attempt to break the shell before the time, 
she would only destroy the embryonic life of the 
chicken. 

And finally, the process of incubation may be used 
to make clear the relation of the Socialist propaganda 
to the process of natural economic evolution. To 
hatch a chicken, the hen must have an egg, an object 
containing the germs of a chicken. No amount of 
hatching will turn a stone into a chicken. On the 
other hand, an egg will remain an egg forever unless 
deliberately taken by the hen into hatching. No sys- 
tem of society can be transformed into a Socialist 
commonwealth unless it has in it the germs of a So- 
cialist order, and on the other hand, no system of 
society will grow into a Socialist state unless planfully 
directed to it. The capitalist state is the egg — the 
Socialists do the hatching! 



CHAPTER V. 

THE POLITICAL PROGRAM. 

IF the Socialists were in control of Congress, what 
would be the first thing they would do? 
This is one of the questions most frequently ad- 
dressed to the Socialist propagandist. On the surface 
the question seems perfectly legitimate, but on closer 
analysis it will be found to be based on a miscon- 
ception of the Socialist philosophy and a wrong notion 
of the established course of social and political pro- 
gress. 

The one great aim of all Socialists is the socializa- 
tion of the industries, but that is obviously not the 
"first thing" that Socialists in office could attempt to 
bring about. The collective ownership of the social 
instruments of wealth production cannot be estab- 
lished by a single legislative enactment. Rather will 
it be the culmination of a long series of political and 
industrial reforms of a socialistic nature. These re- 
forms will be numerous and varied in character and 
scope. Some of them will have to be dealt with by 
Congress, others by state legislatures or local politi- 
cal units. The measures will probably not present 
themselves always and everywhere in the identical 

59 



60 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

form and sequence. Accidental occurrences and local 
conditions may force different issues to the front at 
different times and places. To determine in advance 
the exact succession of proposed Socialist reforms 
would be an idle undertaking. The test of practica- 
bility of Socialist politics is not whether the Socialists 
are agreed on a "first" practical measure, but whether 
they present a political program comprehensive 
enough to meet all important social problems of the 
day. They do. 

The Socialist Party has a very definite political 
program, which differs radically from the platforms 
of all other political parties in scope, structure and 
contents. 

The political platforms of the old parties are built 
largely on the same plan as a menu a la carte in an 
opulent restaurant. They are framed to meet all 
tastes and to satisfy all appetites. Their object is to 
"catch votes" — all kinds of votes, and each of their 
"planks" is designed to appeal to a special class of 
voters. The manufacturers and the workers, the rail- 
roads and the farmers, the producers and consumers, 
the foreign-born citizens and the negroes of the South 
in turn receive promises, pledges or compliments. 
The platforms are mainly adjusted to the minor "is- 
sues" of the hour and usually fight shy of the more 
vital and permanent social problems of the nation. 
The planks are often inconsistent and meaningless, 
-md are never cemented by a cohesive social philos- 
ophy. There is hardly a pledge in the platform of 



THE POLITICAL PROGRAM 61 

the Republican Party that could not find legitimate 
lodgment in that of the Democratic Party and vice 
versa. Very often it is a race between the two old 
parties for the most popular issue, and sometimes 
both endorse the same popular demands with vary- 
ing degrees of emphasis. It would be a vain task to 
attempt to distinguish the social philosophy of the 
Bryan platform of 1908 from that of the Roosevelt 
platform of 1904, or that of the Parker platform of 
1904 from the Taft platform of 19 12. 

The political platform of the Socialist Party, on 
the other hand, is based on a definite social conception 
and on a dominant and consistent political purpose. 
The Socialist aim in politics is to better the lot of 
the workers, to curb the power of the capitalist 
classes, to extend the social and industrial functions 
of the government and to place the latter more 
directly in the hands of the people — all with the ulti- 
mate object of transforming the present industrial 
and political system into a social democracy. These 
aims are formulated in concrete and definite planks 
or "demands, " which constitute the invariable political 
platform of Socialism. The Socialist platform may 
be redrafted periodically and greater prominence may 
be given to the issues surging to the foreground at 
a particular time, but on the whole it is practically 
unchangeable. It could not consistently be other- 
wise. The Socialist Party was organized for the 
accomplishment of a definite social and political pur- 
pose. Its platform is but the expression of that pur- 



62 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

pose and a statement of the steps by which it is ex- 
pected to be realized. So long as that purpose remains 
unaccomplished and so long as the party adheres to 
its main aim, principles and methods, so long must 
the substance of its platform remain intact. 

As the capitalist interests become more dominant 
and acute, representative government gradually ceases 
to be a government "of, for and by the people," and 
becomes tainted with class bias, bossism and corrup- 
tion. The subversion of popular government to the 
interests of the great money powers and their avowed 
representatives in politics and government is growing 
more menacing every year, and is giving rise to the 
multiform movements for political reform within and 
without the established political organizations. 

The main currents of such reform movements pro- 
ceed along two lines. The first of these is directed 
against the personal unfitness or corruption of indi- 
vidual office-holders or politicians. To this class of 
reforms belong all sporadic movements of the good 
citizens to "turn the rascals out of office," which fur- 
nish the periodical political excitements in local elec- 
tions. The recent enthusiasm for the Commission 
Form of Government in cities, for the Short Ballot 
in local, state and national elections, and all similar 
movements, are only practical applications, in differ- 
ent forms, of the same "good-men" theory in politics. 
They all proceed from the assumption that "good" 
officials make a "good" government. They believe 
that our present system of voting for a confusing 



THE POLITICAL PROGRAM 63 

mass of candidates for important and trivial offices 
at every annual election, precludes the possibility of 
an intelligent choice of public officials, and they 
recommend a curtailment of the list of elective offi- 
cers and the lengthening of their official terms as an 
efficient method of getting the best men. 

The Socialists attach but slight importance to these 
u good government" movements. They hold that the 
paramount factor in politics is measures, not men — 
class interests, not personal qualities. 

The Republican and the Democratic parties and 
every reform party organized by "respectable" citi- 
zens are alike founded on the present order of so- 
ciety, and consciously or unconsciously they stand for 
the preservation of that order and for the domina- 
tion of wealth. They are managed and financed by 
the possessing classes and their political officials 
spring from these classes or are dependent on them 
for their careers. Whether they are personally good, 
bad or indifferent, honest or dishonest, capable or in- 
competent, they are tied to the capitalist class by en- 
vironment, training, instinct and interest. Experience 
has demonstrated time and time again that "good 
government" is powerless even to check simple crime 
and corruption in politics for any considerable length 
of time. It is ludicrously ineffectual as an instrument 
for the betterment of the lot of the toilers. 

What the Socialists are striving for is not a gov- 
ernment of good capitalists for good capitalists, but a 
government of workers for all workers. 



64 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

The more important movements of political reform 
are those concerned with the permanent improvement 
of political methods and institutions. These move- 
ments have for their object the extension of the suf- 
frage to classes still excluded from it, or they aim to 
increase the political power of the people and to 
strengthen their control over their chosen representa- 
tives. 

The National Platform of the Socialist Party, 
adopted at Indianapolis in 19 12, contains the follow- 
ing political planks or "demands*' : 

Unrestricted and Equal Suffrage for Men 
and Women. 

The Adoption of the Initiative, Referen- 
dum and Recall and of Proportional Repre- 
sentation. 

The Abolition of the Senate and the Veto 
Power of the President. 

The Election of the President and Vice- 
President by the Direct Vote of the People. 

The Abolition of the Power Usurped by the 
Supreme Court of the United States to Pass 
Upon the Constitutionality of Legislation 
Enacted by Congress. 

National Laws to be Repealed Only by Act 
of Congress, or by a Referendum Vote of the 
Majority of the Voters. 

The Extension of Democratic Government 
to All United States Territory. 

The Immediate Curbing of the Powers of 




Socialists believe in the 
abolition of the Senate 
and the veto power of 
the President. 



THE POLITICAL PROGRAM 6$ 

the Courts to Issue Injunctions in Labor 
Disputes. 

The Free Administration of Justice. 

The Calling of a Convention for the Re- 
vision of the Constitution of the United 
States. 

All these measures are essential, but in practice the 
Socialists lay particular stress on three of these de- 
mands: Woman Suffrage, Proportional Representa- 
tion and Restriction of the Powers of the Courts. 

The Socialist Party was the first political party in 
any country to declare unequivocally for the full 
and equal right of all adults of both sexes to 
vote in popular elections and to hold public office, and 
it has fully established the principle of political sex 
equality within its own organizations. Women con- 
stitute a substantial part of the active membership of 
the Socialist Party and they are always largely and 
ably represented on its lecture platforms and in its 
executive councils and conventions. 

The principle of Proportional Representation is a 
vital article of the Socialist political faith on grounds 
of expediency as well as principle. The Socialist Party 
is a minority party and a class party. As a minority 
party it is practically deprived of representation under 
the prevailing system of election by legislative dis- 
tricts of single constituencies. In the elections of 
19 1 2 the total number of votes cast for all parties 
was about 15,000,000. Of these the Socialist Party 
received in the neighborhood of 900,000, or about 



66 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

6 per cent. On this basis the party was entitled to 
26 out of 435 members of the House of Representa- 
tives. It did not elect one. Assuming that the Social- 
ist vote is evenly distributed all over the country, 
which is very largely the case, we may conceive of a 
situation where, with a political strength equal to one- 
fourth or even a full third of the voting power of the 
country, it may remain without representation or voice 
in Congress. And the situation is similar with ref- 
erence to our state legislatures and city councils. 

The objection most frequently raised to the system 
of proportional representation is, that it would tend 
to enhance the importance of political organizations 
as against the personality of the individual candidates. 
But in the eyes of the Socialists this is rather an argu- 
ment in favor of the measure than against it. For the 
Socialists consider their party first of all as the politi- 
cal instrument of the working-class struggles. The 
Socialist Party as such formulates the political de- 
mands of the movement, conducts the campaigns for 
their enactment, and is accountable to the workers for 
the results of its policies. The candidates of the 
party are merely its agents, agents with restricted 
powers and specific mandates. 

The principle of proportional representation is di- 
rectly opposed to the philosophy underlying the grow- 
ing movement for direct or popular primaries within 
the organizations of the old parties. The Republican 
and Democratic parties are not separated by class 
lines. As between themselves they have no distinct 




Socialists would curb the 
Court's power of injunction 



THE POLITICAL PROGRAM 67 

missions or functions. Their separate organizations 
only tend to develop political "rings" and "bosses" 
for the appropriation and distribution of political 
plunder. Hence the desire of the respectable citizens 
to abolish party organizations and conventions and 
to place the nomination of candidates, practically the 
sole function of the old political parties, in the hands 
of the voters. To the militant Socialists a movement 
to eliminate their party organization would appeal 
with the same force and conviction as a proposal to 
suspend military order and discipline would appeal 
to an army in battle. 

The curtailment of the powers of our courts is 
probably the most fundamental political measure ad- 
vocated by the Socialists. No other free nation has 
ever permitted a small group of men to set aside its 
laws and to nullify the expressed will of the people. 
These extraordinary powers are the distinctive attri- 
butes of absolute and autocratic sovereignty. So long 
as the people of the United States leave their ultimate 
political and social destinies at the mercy of nine men, 
appointed for life and often out of touch and sym- 
pathy with the needs, struggles and aspirations of the 
great masses, so long will our "self-government" be 
a sham and our "democracy" a delusion. 

The great modern problems can be solved peace- 
fully and rationally only by a people free to shape its 
own destinies, and to model and remodel its institu- 
tions without the arbitrary interference of a few old 
men nourished by the musty legal wisdom of the dead 



68 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

past. The Socialists therefore consider the radical 
reformation of our judiciary system a condition prece- 
dent to all true measures of social reform. 

The political planks in the Socialist platform aim 
to establish a closer connection between the people and 
their chosen representatives and to extend the direct 
participation of the citizens in the government. But 
the Socialises do not overestimate the importance of 
political reforms. Politics is not government, it is 
only the machinery of government. Tools in them- 
selves, and be they ever so ingenious and apt, are en- 
tirely devoid of value unless applied to the production 
of socially useful commodities. Universal adult suf- 
frage, direct legislation and control of public officials 
are the tools of democracy. They are of the highest 
importance and value if used for the enactment of 
measures to improve the every-day lives of the people 
and to increase their general happiness. They are 
purely ornamental otherwise. 

The Socialists are vitally interested in all measures 
calculated to enhance the material welfare and to 
raise the intellectual level of the workers. They be- 
lieve that the task of transforming modern capitalist 
society into a Socialist commonwealth rests primarily 
on the workers, and they realize that this gigantic 
historical task cannot be accomplished by a class of 
physical and mental weaklings, but that it requires 
the organized and persevering efforts of large masses 
of men and women physically, mentally and morally 
fit to assume the reins of government. The Socialist 



THE POLITICAL PROGRAM 69 

efforts to raise the standard of the workers' lives are 
therefore not based on mere humanitarian or senti- 
mental motives. They are an organic part of the 
practical work of Socialism, an indispensable condi- 
tion of the progress and ultimate success of the 
movement. The platform of the Socialist Party con- 
tains the following comprehensive "demand" under 
this head : 

"The conservation of human resources, particularly 
of the lives and well-being of the workers and their 
families : 

"1. By shortening the workday in keeping with 
the increased productiveness of machinery. 

"2. By securing to every worker a rest period of 
not less than a day and a half in each week. 

"3. By securing a more effective inspection of 
workshops, factories and mines. 

"4. By forbidding the employment of children un- 
der 16 years of age. 

"5. By the co-operative organization of industries 
in federal penitentiaries and workshops for the bene- 
fit of convicts and their dependents. 

"6. By forbidding the interstate transportation of 
the products of child-labor, of convict-labor and of 
all uninspected factories and mines. 

"7. By abolishing the profit system in government 
work, and substituting either the direct hire of labor 
or the awarding of contracts to co-operative groups 
of workers. 

"8. By establishing minimum wage scales. 



yo SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

"9. By abolishing official charity and substituting a 
non-contributory system of old-age pensions, a gen- 
eral system of insurance by the state of all its mem- 
bers against unemployment and invalidism and a sys- 
tem of compulsory insurance by employers of their 
workers, without cost to the latter, against industrial 
diseases, accidents and death." 

The most important of these measures from a So- 
cialist point of view are those dealing with the short- 
ening of the labor time and with the system of "social 
insurance" of the workers. A shorter workday would 
tend to solve at least partly the problem of unem- 
ployment and at the same time and for the same rea- 
son to increase the average wage. It would give to 
the worker more time to live, think and enjoy, and 
would broaden his political, social and spiritual in- 
terests. It would also contribute largely to the cur- 
tailment of the evil of child labor. Government 
insurance of the workers in cases of unemployment, 
accidents, sickness, invalidity and old age would tend 
to remove that most dreadful feature of the life of 
the modern wage-worker — the uncertainty of exist- 
ence, the fear of the morrow. Under present condi- 
tions the unfortunate worker who has been maimed 
or has gradually lost his youth, health and strength 
in the service of his fellow-men is mercilessly cast 
aside and allowed to starve and perish by degrees. 
Under a system of government insurance, society 
would take care of the victims and veterans of the 
large life-sustaining army of workers as it now pro- 



THE POLITICAL PROGRAM 71 

vides for the victims and veterans of death-dealing 
warfares. The measure is not a Socialist Utopia, for 
systems of social insurance along the lines indicated, 
in more or less perfect form, are in actual operation 
in almost all advanced modern countries except the 
United States. 

While seeking to secure all needed measures of 
immediate political and industrial reform, the So- 
cialists also endeavor to extend the sphere of the 
social and economic functions of the government. 

The Socialist platform demands: 

"1. The collective ownership and democratic man- 
agement of railroads, wire and wireless telegraphs 
and telephones, express services, steamboat lines and 
all other social means of transportation and communi- 
cation and of all large-scale industries. 

"2. The immediate acquirement by the municipali- 
ties, the states or the federal government of all grain 
elevators, stock yards, storage warehouses and other 
distributing agencies, in order to reduce the present 
extortionate cost of living. 

"3. The extension of the public domain to include 
mines, quarries, oil wells, forests and water-power. 

"4. The further conservation and development of 
natural resources for the use and benefit of all the 
people : 

"a. By scientific forestation and timber protection. 

"b. By the reclamation of arid and swamp tracts. 

"c. By the storage of flood waters and the utiliza- 
tion of water-power. 



72 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

"d. By the stoppage of the present extravagant 
waste of the soil and of the products of mines and oil 
wells. 

"e. By the development of highway and waterway 
systems. 

"5. The collective ownership of land wherever 
practicable, and, in cases where such ownership is 
impracticable, the appropriation by taxation of the 
annual rental value of all land held for speculation. 

"6. The collective ownership and democratic man- 
agement of the banking and currency system. 

"7. The immediate government relief of the un- 
employed by the extension of all useful public works. 
All persons employed on such works to be engaged 
directly by the government under a workday of not 
more than eight hours and not less than the prevail- 
ing union wages. The government also to establish 
employment bureaus; to lend money to states and 
municipalities without interest for the purpose of 
carrying on public works, and to take such other 
measures within its power as will lessen the wide- 
spread misery of the workers caused by the misrule 
of the capitalist class. 

"8. The adoption of a graduated income tax, the 
increase of the rate of the present corporation tax 
and the extension of inheritance taxes, graduated in 
proportion to the nearness of kin — the proceeds of 
these taxes to be employed in the socialization of 
industry." 

Of all the planks of the Socialist platform, those 



THE POLITICAL PROGRAM 73 

just quoted would naturally seem most closely allied 
to the ultimate aim and social ideal of the Socialists. 
As a matter of fact, they are not. The Socialists 
entertain no illusions as to the benefits of govern- 
mentally owned industries under the present regime. 
Government ownership is often introduced not as a 
democratic measure for the benefit of the people, but 
as a fiscal measure to provide revenue for the gov- 
ernment or to facilitate its military operations. In 
such cases government ownership may tend to 
strengthen rather than to loosen the grip of capital- 
ist governments on the people, and its effect may be 
decidedly reactionary. Similarly government owner- 
ship is often advocated by middle-class "reform" 
parties for the main purpose of decreasing the taxes 
of property owners and reducing the rates of freight, 
transportation and communication for the smaller 
business men. 

The Socialist demand for government ownership 
of industries of a public or quasi-public nature, springs 
from different motives and contemplates a different 
system than the similar demands of other parties. The 
Socialists advocate government ownership primarily 
for the purpose of eliminating private profits from the 
operation of public utilities, and conferring the bene- 
fits of such industries on the employees and consum- 
ers. Their demand for national or municipal owner- 
ship of industries is always qualified by a provision 
for the democratic administration of such industries 
and for the application of the profits to the increase 



74 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

of the employees' wages and the improvement of the 
service. Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that 
when the Socialist platform declares in favor of gov- 
ernment ownership of certain industries, the Socialist 
Party at the same time nominates candidates for pub- 
lic office pledged to carry out these measures in the 
spirit of that platform. In other words, what the 
Socialists advocate is not government ownership under 
purely capitalist administration, but collective owner- 
ship under a government controlled or at least strong- 
ly influenced by political representatives of the work- 
ing class. 

The measures so far discussed do not exhaust the 
practical "demands" of the Socialist Party. For while 
the party is primarily concerned with the relief of the 
workers, its endeavors do not end there. The Social- 
ists are deeply interested in all measures of social pro- 
gress and national welfare. 

Thus the Socialist platform contains planks in favor 
of the absolute freedom of press, speech and assem- 
blage; the enactment of further measures for general 
education and particularly for vocational educa- 
tion in useful pursuits; the enactment of additional 
measures for the conservation of the public health and 
the creation of an independent Bureau of Health. 

The National platform of the Socialist Party is 
supplemented by State and Municipal platforms, 
which are always concrete applications of the same 
general principles to the narrower spheres of their 
respective functions and jurisdictions, and together 



THE POLITICAL PROGRAM 75 

they constitute a logical, consistent and comprehensive 
program of social progress. And it is just in that 
consistency and comprehensiveness that the strength 
of the Socialist platform lies. The separate practical 
measures advocated by the Socialists are often trivial 
in comparison with the lofty ultimate aim of the move- 
ment. Some of them may even occasionally be found 
duplicated in the platforms of other political parties. 
Not one of them, standing alone, has a distinctive 
Socialist character. But taken in its entirety, the So- 
cialist platform presents a striking and radical depart- 
ure from the platforms of all other political parties, 
and bears the unmistakable imprint of the Socialist 
thought and endeavors. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE MOVEMENT. 

IN this chapter we will endeavor to sum up the 
record of concrete achievements of the modern 
Socialist movement. The task presupposes a 
definite test by which the practical results of the 
Socialist propaganda may be ascertained and meas- 
ured. What is that test? 

The aim of Socialism is to reorganize modern 
society by abolishing private operation of business and 
introducing a system of socialized industries. This 
program extends to the entire civilized world. It 
may be realized in different places at different times, 
but in each case it will require for its realization the 
entire machinery of a complete and autonomous politi- 
cal government. 

Neither a city administration nor a state govern- 
ment is capable of reorganizing the important na- 
tional industries on a basis of collective ownership. 
A Socialist commonwealth can be established only 
through the co-operation of all departments of the 
national and state governments. In other words, the 
Socialists must be in full political control of the coun- 
try before any part of their ultimate social ideal can 
be materialized. 

7 6 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS 77 

It is singular how the non-Socialists and anti-Social- 
ists alike fail to grasp this simple proposition. "Has 
Socialism ever been tried ?" naively inquire the for- 
mer, and "Socialism has failed wherever it has been 
put to a practical test," gravely assert the latter. 

As a matter of fact, Socialism has never been 
"tried" and has never "failed," just as little as the 
twenty-first century has been "tried" or has "failed." 
Socialism represents an order of society which is ex- 
pected to evolve from the present order. It is an 
anticipated future phase of modern civilization, just 
as "capitalism" and "feudalism" represent the pres- 
ent and the past stages of that civilization. 

Social systems cannot be had "on trial" or "on 
approval" like a pair of gloves, to be retained or 
rejected, depending on the satisfaction which they 
give or fail to give to the prospective user. Less 
advanced organizations of society grow into more 
advanced organizations when time and conditions are 
ripe for the change, just as youth grows into adoles- 
cence — without preliminary "samples" or "trials." 

The test of the practical achievements of the So- 
cialist movement is therefore not, whether Socialism 
has already been realized in parts or in spots, but 
whether the movement has made a substantial ad- 
vance in the task of creating social and political con- 
ditions favorable to the introduction of the Socialist 
commonwealth. 

A familiar page from the history of the United 
States will serve to illustrate the point. 



78 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

The organized anti-slavery movement of this coun- 
try dates back to the last quarter of the eighteenth 
century, when abolition societies were formed in 
Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Connecticut, 
Virginia and New Jersey. The agitation assumed a 
more practical and direct aspect under the leadership 
of Garrison, about 1830, and thenceforth continued 
with growing intensity for a period of about thirty- 
five years. The abolitionists may be said to have 
gained control of the political machinery of the coun- 
try with the first election of Lincoln in November, 
i860. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on 
January 1st, 1863. The political power of the anti- 
slavery forces became absolute upon the final surren- 
der of the Confederate Army on April 9th, 1865, and 
the institution of slavery was definitely and completely 
banished from the entire territory of the United 
States by an amendment to the Constitution on the 
1 8th of December of the same year. 

Assume, now, the condition of the abolitionist 
movement about the middle of the last century, and 
let us suppose that its followers are catechized on the 
subject of concrete achievements. 

"Your movement is more than half a century old, 
and you have had about twenty years of organized 
and direct work. What practical results have you 
accomplished; what portion of the negro slaves in the 
South have you succeeded in freeing?" 

We may imagine a question like this addressed to 
Wendell Phillips by an unbiased inquirer with a "prac- 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS 79 

tical turn of mind" and repeated with derision by the 
"safe, sane and conservative" pro-slavery advocate. 
And we can hear Phillips' smiling answer: 
"No, we have not yet emancipated the Southern 
negroes or any portion of them. When the hour shall 
come to abolish slavery, we will abolish it all, and in 
the meantime we have made a few big strides towards 
that goal. Since the beginning of the abolition move- 
ment we have gained some notable political victories, 
such as the Missouri Compromise and the admission 
of California as a free state. But we have gained 
vastly more in educating the public mind and arousing 
the public conscience to the realization of the evils 
of slavery, and the creation and growth of a strong 
organized force to battle for the abolition of that 
evil. Less than fifteen years ago the abolitionists 
were decried by the press and church as enemies of 
society, criminals, heretics and free-lovers, and all 
good people held them in horror; to-day, large sec- 
tions of the enlightened public begin to feel that our 
aim is pure and good and they turn a sympathetic ear 
to us. Thirteen years ago Elijah P. Lovejoy was 
mobbed and killed for denouncing the brutal burning 
of a negro slave, and William Lloyd Garrison was 
dragged by a rope, half naked, through the streets 
of Boston; to-day the leaders of our movement can 
freely write and speak their thoughts. Respectable 
publications will report their utterances without dis- 
torting them, and well-behaved audiences will listen 
to them attentively and thoughtfully. 



80 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

"Ten years ago we formed the Liberty Party and 
polled but 7,059 votes in the whole country; two 
years ago our Free-Soil Party received almost three 
hundred thousand votes. 

"We have overcome many obstacles in the path of 
our movement and have created many conditions 
favorable to the ultimate triumph of our cause. 
These are the concrete and practical achievements of 
our agitation." 

It takes but little imagination to translate the as- 
sumed colloquy into modern terms and to apply the 
abolitionist argument to the present-day Socialist 
movement. 

The concrete and conscious efforts to pave the way 
for the introduction of a Socialist regime may be 
summarized under the following three main heads : 

1. The enactment of such social reforms as tend 
to facilitate the transition from capitalism to Social- 
ism. 

2. The creation of a sympathetic public attitude 
towards the Socialist aim and program. 

3. The organization of a body of persons, suffi- 
ciently numerous, intelligent and trained to accom- 
plish the practical task of social transformation. 

The extent to which these tasks have been accom- 
plished determines the measure of practical success of 
the Socialist propaganda. 

Under the head of "socialistic" reforms we must 
include all modern legislation, directly or indirectly 
inspired by Socialist activities, and having for its ob- 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS 81 

ject the betterment of the economic condition of the 
workers or the increase of their social and political 
strength. But few national reforms of this descrip- 
tion are directly traceable to Socialist initiative in this 
or in any other country. It must be borne in mind 
that Socialism is, on the whole, a very recent factor 
in the politics of modern nations. In Germany, the 
Social Democratic Party has been represented in Par- 
liament about forty-five years, but in all other coun- 
tries the first appearance of Socialism on the political 
arena does not date back more than twenty or twenty- 
five years. In the United States the Socialist repre- 
sentation in Congress is limited to the one term of 
Victor L. Berger (1911-1913). While the Socialists 
have representation in almost every Parliament of 
Europe, and in many instances form strong groups 
in them, they nevertheless are in the minority in each 
case. In most European Parliaments a fixed and 
rather large number of seconders is required before 
a proposed measure can be considered by the house. 
The Socialist parliamentary groups in these countries 
have until recent years rarely been strong enough to 
comply with such requirements, and their practical 
activities were thus of necessity limited to the support 
or opposition of measures introduced by the govern- 
ment or by other parties. But with all these handi- 
caps, the Socialist work in national law-giving bodies 
is not devoid of direct and important results. The 
Social Democratic Party of Germany boasts of a large 
number of reform measures, principally in the field 



82 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

of workingmen's state insurance, factory laws and tax- 
ation, which have been enacted through its direct ini- 
tiative. In France the Socialist deputies have secured 
the passage of laws reducing the hours of labor of 
government employees, extending the powers of mu- 
nicipal administration and improving the system of 
state accident insurance and old-age pensions. In 
Denmark the Socialist representatives in Parliament 
have caused the adoption of a system by which the 
labor unions receive government subsidies for their 
unemployed members. In Austria, Sweden and Nor- 
way, the Socialist parties have been largely instru- 
mental in extending the popular suffrage, and in 
Italy, Belgium and Switzerland, they have succeeded 
in forcing the adoption of substantial reform meas- 
ures of various characters. 

But more important than the achievements in the 
domain of national legislation have been the practical 
results of local Socialist politics.. This is quite nat- 
ural. While the Socialists so far constitute only small 
minorities in the national councils of the world, they 
have already succeeded in securing full control of 
numerous cities and towns in all modern countries. 
In Germany, France and Italy the Socialist municipali- 
ties count by the hundreds. Austria, Belgium, Hol- 
land and the Scandinavian countries likewise contain 
large numbers of cities, towns and villages fully con- 
trolled by the Socialists, and no less than two thou- 
sand municipal councils in Europe have Socialist rep- 
resentation of varying degrees of strength. Even in 




Socialists would begin their reforms with 
the child, the bearer of the nation's future. 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS 83 

the United States, in which the political career of 
Socialism is practically in its infancy, the Socialist 
Party is in control of more than fifty cities and towns, 
and has elected about one thousand public officials to 
local offices. 

In the cities in which the Socialists have been in 
power they have introduced such reform measures as 
were feasible within the restricted scope and powers 
of municipal governments. The reforms do not con- 
stitute Socialism or even an earnest of Socialism, but 
they are measures based on the recognition of the 
social obligations of the community towards the citi- 
zen, the new spirit in politics for which Socialism is 
largely responsible. 

In the conventional political conception a municipal 
corporation is first of all a business concern, insti- 
tuted and maintained for the purpose of administer- 
ing the corporate property of the city. Hence the 
slogan of all municipal reform movements of the 
middle class is invariably "a clean, honest, business- 
like administration." The Socialists, on the other 
hand, emphasize the social functions of the munici- 
pality; the education, health and social welfare of its 
inhabitants. 

A typical Socialist city begins its reforms with the 
child, the bearer of the community's future. A So- 
cialist municipality almost invariably takes care of its 
working women during the period of confinement by 
providing free maternity hospitals with proper medi- 
cal attendance. When the mother is ready to return 



84 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

to work, the city continues to exercise a watchful and 
tender oversight of the child. Free municipal day 
nurseries, kindergartens, primary schools and schools 
for higher industries succeed each other in the task 
of rearing the child into healthful and enlightened 
manhood or womanhood. In most cases the city pro- 
vides for its needy children not only free instruction, 
but also medical care, and even food and clothing. 
Seaside colonies and summer outings for all poor 
school children are common features in connection 
with the public school systems in Socialist cities. 

Nor do the educational activities of Socialist mu- 
nicipalities end with the child. The cultivation of the 
fine arts and the dissemination of popular science 
among the adult workers, through the medium of 
municipal theatres, free concerts, reading-rooms and 
public lectures are quite usual in Socialist city admin- 
istration. 

Next to the all-important subject of education, the 
Socialists bestow their greatest care on the problems 
of public health. 

Whenever a city under Socialist control contains 
slums or abnormally congested districts, the adminis- 
tration seeks to relieve the condition by the building 
of municipal dwelling-houses and by increasing the 
number of parks and playgrounds. Municipal bath- 
houses, disinfecting plants, hospitals and dispensaries 
are established wherever practicable and physicians 
and nurses are placed at the service of the poor free 
of charge. 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS 85 

The Socialist city administrations everywhere have 
sought to enlarge the scope of public assistance to 
the needy members of the community and to remove 
the sting of charity from such assistance. The poor 
are the victims of our social system. They have been 
wronged by society and the community owes them an 
honorable reparation. Hence the support given by 
the Socialist municipalities is more in the nature of 
pensions than alms. Municipal bakeries, kitchens and 
groceries, selling their products at cost, or giving 
them away, are favorite institutions in Socialist city 
administrations. 

The Socialist municipalities seek to be model 
employers and invariably reduce the hours of work 
and increase the wages of the municipal employees. 
With all this, they are rarely extravagant in their 
expenditures, and their finances are, as a rule, in better 
order than those of the capitalist-governed cities. 
The increased expenditures which the many new activ- 
ities involve are made up by economies in the admin- 
istration of business, elimination of graft, and by 
forcing the wealthy citizens to pay their just shares 
of the taxes. The general spirit of social service and 
civic betterment, which is beginning to pervade the 
administration of cities in all progressive countries of 
the world, is largely due to the Socialist example. 
Even in the United States, Milwaukee, Schenectady 
and Berkeley have established standards of municipal 
administration, which are rapidly beginning to force 
other citie9 into the path of social progress. 



86 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

These, then, are the most conspicuous of the "di- 
rect" political achievements of Socialism. They con- 
stitute a distinct social advance, although they are not 
revolutionary or epoch-making in character. Far 
more significant than the direct results are the numer- 
ous measures of social legislation which have within 
the last generation been enacted by the law-giving 
bodies of almost all civilized countries, as the indirect 
but nevertheless legitimate results of the Socialist 
propaganda. 

Such measures of social reform are, as a rule, orig- 
inally formulated by the Socialist parties on radical 
and thoroughgoing lines. They become the object 
of a persistent and widespread propaganda, and 
finally they acquire the force of popular demands. 
At this stage the "progressive" and sometimes even 
the "conservative" statesmen of the dominant politi- 
cal parties begin to realize the political significance of 
the proposed measure. The Vox Populi means votes 
on election day, and the shrewd leaders of the old 
parties are quite willing to make an occasional con- 
cession to "social justice" in order to maintain or to 
gain political power. A classical example of such 
statesmanship may be found in the very recent politi- 
cal history of our country. The father and leader 
of the new Progressive Party is on record with one 
of the most violent and abusive diatribes against So- 
cialism ever perpetrated in American journalism. By 
the vagaries of the political chess game he suddenly 
found himself deprived of the support of the power- 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS 87 

ful political organization which he had but recently 
controlled. A new party and a new political move- 
ment had to be formed in order to preserve for him 
a measure of political power. Since it could not be a 
party of the old-type stalwart politicians, it had to 
be a party of the people, opposed to the rule of 
bossism and privilege, advocating popular measures 
and preaching the gospel of social progress. The 
Progressive Party accordingly ransacked all progres- 
sive movements of the time, and from each it took the 
most popular planks. And the vast majority of such 
planks was naturally found in ths platform of the 
most radical political organization, the Socialist Party. 
The platform of the Progressive Party teems with 
"principles" and "issues" inspired by the Socialist 
program. 

Whether the Progressive Party will some time 
hold the reins of government of the country, or 
whether it will ultimately dissolve into its constituent 
incongruous elements and vanish, as so many Ameri- 
can reform movements have done in the past, its 
career is sure to leave a definite imprint on the politi- 
cal life of the nation. The radical slogans and watch- 
words which it has cast into the broad masses of the 
people are sure to create a social flame beyond the 
power of any politician to extinguish. The measures 
of "social justice" with which the Progressives are 
toying are taken in earnest by millions of citizens. 
Hereafter they will be inevitable "issues" in our politi- 
cal campaigns. Other political parties will be driven 



88 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

to adopt some of them, and finally they will force 
their way to the statute books of the country. 

Another motive for the enactment of socialistic 
measures is frequently found in the desire to palliate 
or destroy the effectiveness of the Socialist propa- 
ganda. 

When the Socialist movement in any country as- 
sumes such dimensions as to become menacing to the 
dominant classes, the latter frequently conceive the 
idea of checking its growth by making concessions to 
the ''discontented'* masses, and* "thus stealing the 
Socialist thunder." 

Thus Prince Bismarck, when he first introduced 
into the German Diet his broad program of social 
reform, including the revolutionary principles of 
government insurance of the workers against sickness, 
accidents, invalidity and old age, frankly avowed that 
the primary object of the measure was to avert a 
popular revolution. The same considerations hold 
good for all other countries, and the appearance of 
the Socialist movement is invariably accompanied by 
an era of legislative social reform. In England the 
advent of the semi-socialist Labor Party in Parlia- 
ment was followed by the old-age pension system, the 
trade-dispute act and by the more recent comprehen- 
sive social reforms of Lloyd George. The United 
States has for decades been the most backward coun- 
try in the domain of social legislation, but the last few 
years have developed a strong tendency for radical 
social reform, and naturally the Socialist move- 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS 89 

ment in America has begun to acquire political sig- 
nificance at about the same time. 

Experience has demonstrated that the efforts to 
forestall or check the growth of Socialism by legisla- 
tive concessions, never succeed. The concessions are 
necessarily half-hearted, and while the reform meas- 
ures thus enacted are often substantial advances in 
the path of social progress, they always fall far short 
of the radical demands as originally formulated by 
the Socialists. The ruling classes cannot be expected 
to lay down all or even the most substantial of their 
privileges by voluntary legislative enactments. What- 
ever concessions they make to the workers merely 
touch the surface of the evils of capitalist exploitation. 
The mainspring of these evils is bound to remain 
intact, and popular suffering and social injustice are 
bound to continue so long as the basis of the present 
social system, the private ownership of industries, 
persists. 

When one social evil is cured or partly cured, the 
Socialists advance to the next and more vital prob- 
lem. They never run short of demands for reform 
measures, and they can formulate them more rapidly 
and copiously than the other political parties can 
"steal" them. The Socialists do not copyright their 
platform planks. They are well contented to have 
them plagiarized and disseminated. 

The true task of Socialism, the work of rebuilding 
the economic and political structure of modern society 
on the lines of the ultimate Socialist program, will 



90 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

begin only when the Socialists have acquired full polit- 
ical control of the government, and in the meantime 
they are contented with the role of torch-bearers of 
the new civilization, always formulating larger social 
claims, always forcing the next step in social pro- 
gress. The concrete reforms which the organized 
Socialist movement has thus indirectly gained and is 
still constantly gaining by its mere existence and 
growth, are probably more numerous and substantial 
than the actual achievements of all so-called "practi- 
cal" reform movements combined. 

Still more significant for the prospects of the move- 
ment are the effects of the Socialist propaganda upon 
the contemporary public mind. In almost all coun- 
tries of Europe the Socialist movement has experi- 
enced three distinct phases of development. The first 
is one of general ridicule, which manifests itself in 
grotesque caricaturing of its aims and character. 
This phase is invariably succeeded by an era of fierce 
attacks and denunciations from all established organs 
of public expression, as a rule accompanied by rigid 
government persecution. This era represents the at- 
tempt to stamp out Socialism by brutal force, — the 
vain attempt which has met every historical movement 
for a new order, and which has always served to vital- 
ize, cement and strengthen such movements. 

When the Socialist movement has survived both 
ridicule and persecution, and has demonstrated its 
determination and capacity to stay and to grow, it 
enters upon the third stage of its existence, that of 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS 91 

being "respected." By this expression it is not in- 
tended to convey the idea that the Socialist movement 
ever has reached the point of becoming acceptable or 
even sufferable to the privileged classes. It will 
never reach that point so long as it retains its 
principal and most vital object — the abolition of all 
class privileges. 

The ruling classes are probably more hostile to the 
Socialists now than they were during the earlier and 
weaker stages of the movement. But it is the hatred 
of an enemy facing a formidable adversary, a hatred 
mingled with respect, and often counseling concessions 
rather than courting war. 

And side by side with the privileged classes, great 
in power, but few in numbers, there are the large and 
somewhat vague strata of society, generally styled the 
"middle" classes, and the still larger and more definite 
classes of wage-workers of all types. 

The middle classes, who reap but slight benefits 
from the present order and are not bound to it by ties 
of privilege and wealth, begin to see in the promises 
of Socialism a possible solution of their ever-growing 
economic problems. They develop a more serious 
and sympathetic understanding for the humanitarian 
ideals of the new social creed, and many of their 
number finish by embracing it unreservedly. 

The working classes are the most direct beneficiar- 
ies of the proposed Socialist system. As far as they 
are concerned, an understanding of the Socialist doc- 
trine is practically equivalent to its acceptance. That 



92 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

understanding has been brought home to millions of 
them within the last two or three decades of Social- 
ist propaganda, and millions of them have enlisted 
under the banner of international Socialism. 

Socialism has become one of the great world-pow- 
ers of modern times. In the most advanced countries 
of Europe the governments shape their policies with 
special reference to the probable effect on the Social- 
ist movement. Chancellor von Biilow has publicly 
admitted that fact for Germany; and France, Eng- 
land and Italy have repeatedly made efforts to induce 
the Socialist parties to assume active participation in 
the government by offering cabinet positions to their 
representatives. One of the most interesting epi- 
sodes serving to demonstrate the political strength of 
the international Socialist movement occurred but a 
short time ago, at the outbreak of the Italian-Turkish 
war, when the prime minister of Turkey officially 
submitted a memorial to the International Socialist 
Bureau at Brussels, complaining of the arbitrary and 
barbarous procedure by which the Italian government 
forced the war, and asking for the intervention of the 
Socialists in behalf of his outraged country. As a 
matter of fact, the Socialist movement has prevented 
more than one threatened war within the last decade. 
It is one of the most powerful modern factors for 
peace between the nations of Europe. 

But the most vital and direct test of the practical 
results of the Socialist activities is their effect on the 
Socialist organizations. Preparatory reform meas- 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS 93 

urcs and a favorable state of the public mind create 
the necessary atmosphere and environment for the 
introduction of a new and radical social order, but 
the concrete task of ushering in such an order must be 
accomplished by an organized force, and the larger 
and better organized that force, the sooner will the 
change come and the more thorough and lasting will 
it be. 

By the middle of the last century Socialism was 
confined to a small group of individuals and repre- 
sented nothing more than an abstract school of un- 
popular social philosophy. To-day the Socialist 
movement has become a recognized factor in the pub- 
lic life of at least twenty-six modern nations. In 
1867 the total number of Socialist votes in the world 
was about 30,000. To-day it exceeds ten million. 
The Socialist movement is thoroughly organized, 
more so than any other movement in our days or in 
the past. In each country the Socialists constitute a 
party, based on dues-paying, active and permanent 
membership. All Socialist parties of the world are 
in turn leagued together as one great organization. 
Every three years they assemble in international con- 
gress for joint deliberation and action, and they main- 
tain at all times an International Socialist Bureau, 
composed of representatives of all national Socialist 
parties, meeting in periodical sessions, and transacting 
business through the medium of a local executive 
committee and a permanent secretary. The In- 
ternational Organization of Socialism can to-day 



94 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

mobilize a larger force than any government in the 
world. 

The Socialist organization is solid because it is not 
a sporadic creation, but the result of a process of 
steady, regular and legitimate growth. It is reliable 
because it is composed of men and women who have 
enlisted in the cause voluntarily and are attached to it 
by indestructible ties of conviction and hope. It is 
well trained and disciplined by that mutual training 
and self-imposed discipline which alone can be counted 
on in an emergency. The Socialist organization is 
supported by all other armies of organized labor. 
The trade-unionists of the world, about as large in 
number as the Socialist voters and wielding a tre- 
mendous economic power, and the co-operative move- 
ment numbering millions of workers and representing 
huge material wealth, are, with few exceptions, sol- 
idly lined up behind the Socialist movement, acting in 
accord with it on all questions of great public im- 
portance. 

It is this world-wide organized force, this grow- 
ing international army of the Socialist warfare, which 
constitutes the most concrete and most promising 
achievement of the Socialist propaganda. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOCIALIST MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. 

FOR many years American statesmen and social 
philosophers watched the growing tide of So- 
cialism on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean 
with serene detachment. "Socialism, " they diag- 
nosed, "is a specific European product. It will never 
take root in American soil." And for a long time 
the belief seemed to'be justified. 

The early forms of European Socialism, the hu- 
manitarian and romantic movements of the beginning 
and the middle of the nineteenth century had found 
a lively echo in the United States. Most of Robert 
Owen's practical experiments in communism were 
tried out on American soil, and his primitive doc- 
trines of Utopian Socialism gained large currency in 
this country during the period between 1825 and 
1830. 

The "Icarian" communities of Etienne Cabet, 
though originating in France, lived through their ad- 
venturous and pathetic history in Texas, Illinois and 
Missouri. The Fourierist creed had such brilliant 
sponsors in the United States as Albert Brisbane, 

95 



96 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

Horace Greeley, Charles A. Dana, Parke Godwin, 
William Channing and John S. Dwight. It produced 
the famous Brook Farm and the North American 
Phalanx besides about forty less known social experi- 
ments in different parts of the country. 

But these movements left no lasting impression 
on the life and thought of the American people. They 
died out before the era of large-scale capitalistic pro- 
duction. 

Socialism as a political working-class movement 
originated in Europe towards the last quarter of the 
nineteenth century, and developed marvelous strength 
and vitality during the following two decades. But 
in the United States it had little more than a nominal 
existence during that period. 

The vast majority of its adherents were foreign- 
born workingmen, principally Germans, who had 
brought their social philosophy with them from their 
native lands, and were making heroic endeavors to ac- 
climatize the movement in the country of their adop- 
tion. Their efforts were practically barren of results. 
The United States lacked the most essential require- 
ments for the development of a Socialist movement 
of the modern type. 

Socialism presupposes an advanced and concen- 
trated state of industry, a powerful class of capitalists 
dominating the economic and political destinies of the 
country, a large army of industrial wage-workers in a 
precarious condition of existence, and a clear-cut and 
conscious economic conflict between these classes. 



MOVEMENT IN UNITED STATES 97 

In the United States these conditions developed 
only within very recent years. A generation ago agri- 
culture was still the main industry of the country, 
while manufacture was conducted on a comparatively 
small scale. The general prosperity following the 
Civil War and the remainder of u free land" in the 
West operated to retard the class struggles in Amer- 
ica and to create a condition of relative industrial 
peace. 

But during the latter half of the nineteenth century 
American industries awoke with a start and with the 
rapidity characteristic of all new-world progress they 
soon outdistanced their European rivals. Enormous 
factories and mills arose all through the East and 
Middle West, and the United States increased its 
manufactured products from about one billion dollars 
to more than thirteen billions per year, thus surging 
from fourth to first rank among the manufacturing 
nations of the world. During the same period the 
different sections of the country were brought into or- 
ganic touch with each other and with the rest of the 
world by a veritable network of railroads and a won- 
derful system of steamboats. The number of rail- 
road miles in operation rose from about 9,000 in 
1850 to almost 200,000 in 1900. The improvement 
in the number, size and speed of transatlantic steam- 
boats kept pace with that of the railroads. The 
means of communication grew as rapidly as those of 
transportation. The postoffices in the country jumped 
from about 28,000 in i860 to more than 75,000 in 



98 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

1900, and the annual telegraph messages increased 
from 5,000,000 to 80,000,000 during the same 
period. 

Towards the end of the nineteenth century the 
United States had become a distinctly industrial and 
"capitalistic" country. Over 40 per cent, of its inhab- 
itants were engaged in manufacture, trade and trans- 
portation, and agriculture receded to second place. 
One-third of all the people had congregated in large 
cities as against one-eighth in 1850. Corporations 
became the dominant factors in industry and finally 
evolved the highest form of capitalist organization — 
the trusts. Large fortunes were quickly made and a 
generation of millionaires and multi-millionaires was 
born. Towards the middle of the last century Amer- 
ica could boast of only fifty millionaires with an ag- 
gregate fortune of about eighty million dollars. At 
the close of the century the number of American mil- 
lionaires of all degrees exceeded twenty thousand, 
their total wealth mounted to thirty billion dollars and 
represented almost a full half of the "national" 
wealth of the country. 

The rapid growth and expansion of capitalism nat- 
urally produced its inseparable counterparts — mass- 
poverty, unemployment, child labor, class struggles, 
social unrest and general discontent. By the end of 
the century about 6,500,000 persons were regularly 
without work at some time during the year, and the 
standing army of jobless workers was considerably 
over one million. At the same time the number of 




Socialism is the legitimate 
child of Capitalism and 
the latter cannot help be- 
getting the former. 



MOVEMENT IN UNITED STATES 99 

working children, 10 to 15 years of age, exceeded 
1,750,000, and that of working women over the age 
of 15 years was about 5,000,000. The closing twenty 
years of the nineteenth century witnessed about 
24,000 recorded labor struggles, involving a total of 
almost 7,000,000 workers. 

Thus the modern industrial conditions of the old 
world were transplanted and intensified in the United 
States, and with them the fatal legacy of economic 
problems and evils. Here as there the baneful sys- 
tem inevitably called forth organized resistance on 
the part of its victims. The movement of resistance 
was represented on the economic field by the labor 
unions. In the political field it was bound to find 
expression in Socialism, just as the similar conditions 
in the countries of Europe had found such expression. 
Socialism is the legitimate child of capitalism, and at 
a certain stage of its development the latter cannot 
help begetting the former. 

The dawn of the present century found a consid- 
erable Socialist and semi-Socialist sentiment among 
several sections of the American population, and also 
the rudiments of a Socialist political organization. 
The latter were represented by two separate factions 
of the "Socialist Labor Party," the old-time organi- 
zation of the Socialists in America, the "Social Dem- 
ocratic Party," which had then been recently organ- 
ized, and several minor Socialist organizations. Dis- 
sensions and antagonism, so characteristic of the 
formative stages of the Socialist movement in every 



ioo SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

country, were the principal feature of the American 
Socialist organizations until the middle of 1901, when 
all organizations with one exception (that of the more 
irreconcilable faction of the Socialist Labor Party) 
united. The formal unification was accomplished at 
a joint national convention, which was held in Indian- 
apolis on July 29, 1 90 1, and which created the pres- 
ent Socialist Party. 

The growth of the Socialist Party during the twelve 
years of its existence is best demonstrated by its 
political gains. 

In the Presidential election of 1900, and before 
the formal unification of the party, its constituent or- 
ganizations polled a vote of about 100,000. This 
vote was materially increased in the spring and fall 
elections of the following year, but owing to the local 
character of these elections the vote was never fully 
reported. 

In the Congressional elections of 1902, however, 
the Socialist vote, to the surprise of all, reached very 
closely the quarter-million mark. 

In the Presidential campaign of 1904, the political 
conditions of the country were exceedingly favorable 
for Socialism. The two great political parties both 
made their campaign on conservative platforms, and 
the People's Party had been discredited by its former 
alliance with the Democrats, and disorganized and 
divided in its ranks. The Socialist Party, therefore, 
was practically the only representative of radicalism 
in politics, and in a position to muster its full legiti- 



MOVEMENT IN UNITED STATES 101 

mate force. The party was thoroughly alive to its 
opportunities, and carried on a campaign which for 
intensity, extension and effectiveness excelled all pre- 
vious efforts of the Socialists in this country. The 
vote polled for the party's candidate for President, 
Eugene V. Debs, was 402,321. 

In the elections of 1906, the vote of the Socialist 
Party was reduced to 330,158 (the figures are based 
on the highest vote in every state) , and the local elec- 
tions of 1907 showed no material change in the So- 
cialist vote. 

The political situation of 1908 was inauspicious 
for the Socialist Party. All political parties made 
special bids for the "labor vote" and were profuse in 
their promises of radical social reforms. The Re- 
publican Party was pledged to continue the "radical 
policies" of President Roosevelt. The Democratic 
Party revived the slogans of the old-time middle-class 
reforms and reinstated the prophet of that brand of 
politics, William J. Bryan, in the leadership of the 
party. The "radicalism" of the old parties was far 
exceeded by that of Mr. Hearst's newly formed In- 
dependence Party. 

The vote cast for the Socialist ticket in that elec- 
tion was 421,520, a slight increase over that of 1904, 
the party's former high record. 

The succeeding two years were years of steady 
activity and quiet harvest for the Socialist movement 
in the United States. The economic condition of the 
country following the crisis of 1907 and the failure 



102 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

of the numerous reform movements of the middle 
classes, had created an atmosphere exceptionally 
favorable to the growth of Socialist sentiment, and 
the organized Socialists were not slow to take advan- 
tage of it. Their propaganda grew in intensity and 
dimension; their organization was greatly strength- 
ened, and they made new converts among all classes 
of the population. 

In the spring of 19 10 the Socialist Party gained 
its first notable political victory in the United States 
by carrying the City of Milwaukee, the twelfth larg- 
est city in the country. 

In the following general Congressional elections 
which took place in November of the same year, the 
Socialist Party increased its vote by about 40 per 
cent., passing the 600,000 mark. In these elections 
also the party for the first time in the history of the 
United States captured a seat in the House of Rep- 
resentatives. Mr. Victor L. Berger was elected as 
the Socialist representative to Congress from the 
Fifth District of Wisconsin. 

Nor did the political tide of Socialism abate in the 
local elections of 191 1. In that year the Socialists 
carried eighteen cities and towns, among them the 
large industrial city of Schenectady in the State of 
New. York; New Castle in Pennsylvania; eight towns 
in Ohio; five in Utah, and one in Minnesota. Berke- 
ley, California; Butte, Montana; Flint, Michigan, 
and several other towns had been carried for Social- 
ism in the spring of the same year. 



MOVEMENT IN UNITED STATES 103 

In the Presidential elections of 19 12 the political 
strength of American Socialism was subjected to a 
most severe test. For the first time in the history of 
American politics the voters were confronted by a 
party similar in type to the "liberal" or "radical" 
parties of the European bourgeoisie. The National 
Progressive Party made its campaign on a platform 
of broad social and political reform. It purloined a 
large number of minor planks from the Socialist pro- 
gram and even adopted many time-honored Socialist 
watch-words and slogans. The new party was or- 
ganized and led by Theodore Roosevelt, the most 
popular man in the country and probably its most 
skilled politician, and his picturesque fight as well as 
the great prestige of his recent high office, could not 
fail to commend his party to the radicals and reform- 
ers of the country and to large masses of the work- 
ers. It offered the logical outlet to the proverbial 
vote of "discontent and protest" 

Under these conditions the vote of the Socialist 
Party was from the outset limited to thoroughgoing 
Socialists. 

It was therefore all the more significant, when it 
was found that the vote cast for Eugene V. Debs on 
November 5, 19 12, was in the neighborhood of 
900,000. The Socialist Party had doubled its vote of 
the preceding Presidential election under the most ad- 
verse circumstances, and had proved itself an estab- 
lished factor in American politics. 

At the present time the Socialists control between 



104 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

fifty and sixty American cities or towns and have 
more than one thousand elected representatives in 
various public offices, including twenty representatives 
in the legislatures of eight states. 

But the progress of the Socialist movement in the 
United States can by no means be measured by its 
political strength and achievements alone. The So- 
cialist Party was organized with a membership of 
less than ten thousand. Towards the end of 1904 
the party consisted of about 1,500 local sub-divisions 
with a total of about 25,000 enrolled and dues-paying 
members. Within the period of the following eight 
years the number of local organizations has risen to 
about 5,000, with a combined membership of ap- 
proximately 120,000. 

Another indication of the increasing importance of 
the movement in the United States is the growth of 
the Socialist press. In 1904 the Socialist Party was 
supported by about forty publications in different lan- 
guages. Since then the number of strictly Socialist 
publications has increased to more than three hun- 
dred. The greater part of these are periodicals in 
the English language, five are daily newspapers, ten 
are monthly magazines and the rest are weeklies. So- 
cialist periodicals are printed in German, Finnish, 
Slavonic, Jewish, Polish, Bohemian, Lettish, French, 
Italian, Danish, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Russian, 
Swedish, Norwegian and Croatian. The first im- 
portant daily English newspaper of the Socialist Party 
was launched in Chicago in the fall of 1906, under 



MOVEMENT IN UNITED STATES 105 

the name of Chicago Daily Socialist, and it was fol- 
lowed by the establishment of the New York Daily 
Call in New York, in May, 1908. The Appeal to 
Reason, a weekly paper, has a circulation of about 
half a million copies, while the Jewish Daily Forward 
sells more than 130,000 copies per day. Among the 
monthly Socialist magazines, one, The Progressive 
Woman, is devoted primarily to the task of 
carrying the gospel of Socialism to women, and 
The Young Socialist aims at educating the youth in 
the philosophy of Socialism. This press labors un- 
der great material difficulties, but is making steady 
progress. 

Besides the Socialist Party there is in the United 
States another Socialist political organization — the 
Socialist Labor Party. This party represents the re- 
mainder of the irreconcilable faction of the former 
party of the same name. Its membership is small, 
and its influence is slight. Still it publishes a daily 
paper in English and a few weekly papers in other 
languages. In the last general election it united about 
29,000 votes on its candidate for President. 

The Socialist movement in the United States has 
also of late made substantial progress among the or- 
ganized workers of the country. Within the last few 
years many American trade-unions have demon- 
strated a lively interest in the subject of Socialism, 
and have on numerous occasions declared themselves 
unreservedly as favoring the Socialist program, or at 
least its most substantial points and planks. In 1907, 



106 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

sixteen national organizations of workingmen, repre- 
senting a total membership of 330,800, had thus en- 
dorsed the Socialist program, and in 1909 the United 
Mine Workers of America, one of the strongest or- 
ganizations within the American Federation of 
Labor, at its national convention declared itself in 
favor of the cardinal aim of Socialism, the socializa- 
tion of all material instruments of production. 

And the industrial workers are not the only class 
among whom Socialism has made gains of late. The 
movement has made deep inroads among American 
farmers. In the national Socialist convention of 
1904, the farmers made their first appearance with 
five delegates, and in the conventions of 1908, 19 10 
and 19 1 2 a very substantial proportion of the dele- 
gates consisted of active and typical farmers. In 
the late general elections several purely agricultural 
states polled heavier Socialist votes than some of 
the states noted for factory industries. 

And even the so-called intellectual classes of Amer- 
ican society, the professionals and middle-class busi- 
ness men, are gradually drawn into the expanding 
circle of the Socialist movement. The American 
schools and colleges, as well as the press and 
churches, are honeycombed with Socialists or Social- 
ist sympathizers. In the fall of 1905, several well- 
known radicals issued a call for the organization of 
a society "for the purpose of promoting an intelligent 
interest in Socialism among college men and women, 
graduate and undergraduate, through the formation 



MOVEMENT IN UNITED STATES 107 

of study clubs in the colleges and universities, and 
the encouraging of all legitimate endeavors to awaken 
an interest in Socialism among the educated men and 
women of the country." On September 12, 1905, 
a number of people met in the city of New York in 
response to the call and organized the "Intercollegi- 
ate Socialist Society." During the short period of its 
existence, the society has distributed a large quantity 
of Socialist literature among college students and 
teachers, and its members have delivered a number 
of lectures on Socialism before college students. So- 
cialist "study chapters" connected with the Intercol- 
legiate Socialist Society have been organized in about 
fifty universities and colleges. 

The Socialist movement has become fully accli- 
matized on American soil. According to a recent 
census, over 71 per cent, of the members of the So- 
cialist Party are native citizens of the United States. 
The Socialist movement is to-day at least as much 
"American" as any other social or political move- 
ment in the country. 

And still American Socialism is only in the mak- 
ing. All indications point to a steady development 
and large growth of the movement within the imme- 
diate future. 

The industries of the country are rapidly concen- 
trating in the hands of an ever-diminishing number 
of powerful financial concerns. The trusts, monopo- 
lies and gigantic industrial combinations are coming 
to be the ruling factors in the life of the nation, in- 



108 SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

dustrial, political and spiritual, and the masses of the 
people are sinking into a condition of ever greater 
dependence. The number of propertyless wage-earn- 
ers is on the increase ; their material existence is grow- 
ing more precarious, and the spirit of dissatisfaction 
and revolt is developing among them. The relations 
between the classes of producers and the employ- 
ing classes are marked by intense, though not 
always conscious, class-antagonism and by overt class 
struggles. 

Within the last few years the organized workers 
of the United States have been assailed with unusual 
severity by the organized capitalists, the government, 
the state and national legislatures, and particularly by 
the courts. These concerted attacks have served to 
demonstrate to many workers that the present meth- 
ods and form of organization of the American trade- 
unions are lacking in efficiency. The trade-unions are 
beginning to revise their methods of warfare. They 
have, within the last few years, made considerable 
advance in the direction of greater organic and inter- 
dependent industrial organization, and they have en- 
tered the field of politics as a class. True, their steps 
in both directions have been uncertain, groping and 
even faulty, but they are nevertheless steps in the 
right direction. A few more intense industrial strug- 
gles, a few more adverse court decisions, a few more 
political disappointments, and the organized workers 
of the United States will be forced into a solid indus- 
trial and political class organization, working in close 



MOVEMENT IN UNITED STATES 109 

harmony and co-operation with the Socialist move- 
ment. 

Similarly hopeful for the progress of Socialism is 
the mental attitude of all other masses of the popu- 
lation. The phenomenal political strength developed 
from time to time by the sporadic reform movements 
is a strong indication of the popular dissatisfaction 
with existing conditions. These movements are, as a 
rule, very indefinite in their aims and superficial in 
their programs. They attract the masses by their 
general radicalism and the promise of a small meas- 
ure of immediate relief. From their very nature they 
are bound to be ineffective and short-lived, and their 
disappointed adherents become peculiarly susceptible 
to the appeals of Socialism. 

Thus the conditions for the growth of a powerful 
Socialist movement in this country are rapidly matur- 
ing and the rate of that growth will largely depend 
upon the ability of the Socialists to take advantage 
of these conditions and to win the confidence and sup- 
port of the discontented masses and especially of the 
workers. 

American Socialism has not as yet evolved definite 
and settled policies and methods, but the more recent 
phases of its development tend to indicate that it is 
beginning to solve its problems and to overcome its 
obstacles. 

Within the short period of twelve years the So- 
cialist Party has grown from a state of insignificance 
to the importance of a serious factor in the national 



no SOCIALISM SUMMED UP 

life of the United States. It is safe to predict that 
in another dozen years it will contend with the old 
parties for political supremacy. 



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